It took God three years to make a Saul into a Paul

Whenever we fail for hope in our recovery or faith journeys — seriously wondering if God is even doing ANY work to change and transform us — we can go direct to the life of Paul to receive fresh hope.

I was struck by this recent quote:

“It took Saul three years in a desert to become Paul, 
to be re-Storied from fundamentalism to the Jesus-way.”
— Chuck DeGroat

There are two commanding yet opposing truths that face each other in this.  Three years must have seemed like a very long time AND he must have been relieved he had time to transform from Saul to Paul.

From Saul’s viewpoint at the start, it could have felt like Psalm 13:1 — “How long, O Lord?”  Yet from Paul’s viewpoint at the end, it could have been, “Now I can see why it took so long.”

For Saul, there must have been quite some angst to get the process of mission started.  Well, at least we might imagine Paul’s fervour waiting before he was ready.  Can you imagine Paul waiting in Saul for three years to prepare for his apostolic ministry?

The process of long preparations is not foreign to us all.  So many of us have trained over years to do what we do.  Some professions involve a journey of ten years plus in development.

To become a pastor, I’ve dedicated 6.5 years of my life to formal education to fit four-years full-time equivalent into, while working full-time throughout.  So many times, we wonder if it’s all going to be worth it.  Yet ultimately, we do arrive at those concrete goals.

Many of us have endured years in the wilderness to finally arrive somewhere we hoped to arrive at.

Times when we had a vision we hoped for, in true Jeremiah 29:11 fashion, and kept going, despite disappointment after obstacle after loss after struggle after setback after despair.

These are times where we’re swept away on a torrent of grief for life adjustment that took us by storm.  And still, you keep going.

And there are those also who are still on the way there!  I can tell you that I, too, right now, am an in-betweener.

People might look at my life and say, “Look at you, you’re set.”  No, there is an ache in my heart for what God is calling me to that hasn’t yet materialised.  It’s frustrating at times.  At times I’m bitter and resentful.  Other times I accept the journey for what it is.  Most of the time I view it as an adventure.  But most of all, I’m not there yet.

Our worst fear is we’ll never arrive, but actually what’s worse is the regret we consider for giving up now that almost certainly consigns us to not arriving.  So you keep going!

The truth of life is God’s taking us all from a situation of Saul and re-creating us to be a Paul.  The way this occurs is we’re taken through levels of development, much so we never truly ‘arrive’, so we’re not happy for long, so we continue looking to the horizon for the next growth conquest.

God’s not finished with any of us yet.  We’re all works in progress.  And progress, NOT perfection, is the point.  This is good for us, because it’s best for us to accept our humanity and the nature of life.

Life is not something we can conquer.  We never master it, and anyone who pretends they have is lying.

Life is the process of learning and growing and keeping on coming back to humility.  And if we resist it, we’re humbled.  Life humbles us.  The notional period of three years itself is a humbling reality.  None of us can achieve instant success.

It’s a bit like hearing about those ‘twenty-year overnight success stories.’  They only appear to be overnight successes because we don’t know what they endured to get where they’ve got.

If it took God three years to make a Saul into a Paul, it will take us a significant amount of time, also, to get where we’re going.

We might as well enjoy the journey and be grateful for each step on the way.

It takes more time, and significantly more effort than we realise it will take to achieve anything worthwhile.  Life rewards those with the stamina to endure the process of going from a Saul to a Paul. So let us not grow weary in doing what is required, for we will reap a harvest of goodness if we don’t give up. (Galatians 6:9)