Acts 22:17-21: a reflection

17“When I had returned to Jerusalem and while I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance 18and saw him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not receive testimony concerning me from you.’ 19I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue those who believed in you. 20When the blood of Stephen, your witness, was shed, I also was standing by, consenting to his death, and guarding the cloaks of those who killed him.’ 21“He said to me, ‘Depart, for I will send you out far from here to the Gentiles.’ ”

Paul is recounting a vision he had in the temple. The Lord tells him to leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people there will not accept his testimony about Jesus. And Paul argues. He is sure he is the ideal witness to these people: they know his history, that he imprisoned and beat believers, that he stood guard over the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen. Who better to testify that Jesus changed him?

Notice that Paul's logic is good. His dramatic before-and-after really would seem to make him a fitting witness to Jerusalem. But the Lord does not take his suggestion. Depart, he says, for I will send you far away, to the Gentiles. God redirects Paul away from the mission Paul thought he was made for, toward one he had not chosen.

There is something to learn from that. Your own sense of where you would be most useful is not always God's assignment. The very qualifications you are sure fit you for one thing, God may be pointing toward another. Paul wanted Jerusalem; God said the Gentiles, and the whole shape of his life followed from accepting that redirection. If God seems to be sending you somewhere other than where your own logic says you belong, Paul's story is a nudge: trust the sending, even when it overrules your reasoning.

Lord, my sense of where I would be most useful is not always your assignment. When you redirect me away from where my own logic says I belong, help me trust your sending and follow, as Paul followed.