Damascus Road
Just about every American home has a good ole Bible
somewhere. I won’t bore you folks
with the fancy statistic, but it’s a lot. Anyway, if you were gonna pick one up
and turn it to Acts chapter 9, you’d read about this guy, Saul who gets Jesus
and becomes Paul on the way to Damascus. Once he gets Him, he never lets go and
goes all around preachin’ and even bein beatin’ for loving Christ. But he
sticks with it. Sounds pretty crazy if you ask me. At least it used to.
Back
in my day, I had this buddy who thought everyone had his or her own little
Damascus Road experience. I didn’t know that he was one of them Jesus freaks
when I started hangin out with him. ‘Course, he wasn’t really all that crazy
til a few years down the line. Nah, we were just a coupla young men tossin
around that football in the park. We knew some people, and every Saturday
afternoon, rain or shine, we’d gather ourselves and kinda hang out. After, we’d
go to the bars, and that’s when things would get wild. Well, I’d known Rod
about three years when one year, he just didn’t show up. We didn’t see head or
tails of that boy all summer. September rolled around and he showed up again,
but man, he was weird. He kept talkin’ ‘bout how God had changed him that
summer-he worked in some church or somethin’ with his folks. He played ball
with us, still, but he wasn’t drinkin’ beer or liquor anymore, said it was
takin’ him further away from bein’ like Jesus. One day I got around to askin’
him what had happened. That’s when he showed me Acts 9. He pulled a tiny little
Bible out of his pocket right there in the park, and started readin’ like it
was no big deal. Then he looked at me and told me he had hisself his own
Damascus Road. Then he goes on and on ‘bout how everyone’s already on his way
to Damascus. We all gonna meet Jesus one day, he claimed; some of us meet him
on earth and some just when we die. And if we wait til we die, it’ll be too
late. We won’t get to go to heaven.
Now
to me, this was all just some dude talkin’ crazy. At some point our little
group separated-you know, people getting’ married, havin’ families, whatever.
Me, I headed out west to see what I’d find, and fancied myself up on a mountain.
Lived quiet, workin’ in town, not really botherin’ anyone. But I was passin’ by
the church one day, and the preacher man was talkin’ ‘bout that guy Saul. Don’t
you know it, I had to stop and listen a little. I couldn’t believe there was
someone else as crazy as Rod (where was that boy anyway?!) out here. All of a sudden, I felt real
weird-dizzy. I found out now I had a heart attack. But ‘most the whole town was
in the church not payin’ attention to the old guy outside it, so I died right
there.
I
think it’s pretty hysterical that the last words I heard before I met Jesus
were all about someone else meetin’ Him. This whole time, I never believed it
could be true, it was all just too nuts. But then I had to. I had my own
Damascus Road. And ya know what, it was too late. Now I’ve got to sit here
sweatin’ it out with the rest of us who never volunteered to hike up that road.
And let me tell you, it’s the worst. So hear me out: don’t come meet me. You
don’t want that, trust me. Take some time and figure out how you gonna meet
Jesus. Because He’s awesome, and I wish I got to spend more time with Him ‘stead
of havin’ to head down here. I don’t care if you hitchhike, walk, crawl, jump a
train, or ride you a bicycle down that road, just get your butt on it. Then you
be Paul, and tell everyone about all about it. I jist hope you don’t get beat
like he did, ‘cause I might feel a little terrible. Eh, but maybe not. ‘Cuz
getting beat will still get you into heaven. At leas’ you won’t be here.
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