Painting With Ashes by Michael Adam Beck

Author:Michael Adam Beck [Beck, Michael Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Loss, Grief, and Healing, Spiritual Growth, Faith
Publisher: Invite Press
Published: 2021-12-01T23:28:05+00:00

PART THREE: RESTORATION

9 Design for Living

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:7–9

Saul of Tarsus had attained the highest education possible, apprenticing himself to the top scholar of his day. He was climbing the ranks of success in the world of religious leadership. He was on the way to a premier spot in the ruling religious body. His accolades, his prestige, and his obsessive perfectionism regarding the righteous upholding of Levitical law were impeccable (Phil 3:4–6).

Then he caught wind of an emerging heretical sect of Judaism, called the followers of “the Way.” This group adhered to the laughable proposition that the Messiah of Israel had come and gone. The man of whom they spoke had been a rabble-rouser. He had defiled himself by associating with the unclean and had even made blasphemous claims about his own identity as the divine Son of God. Finally, he was crucified on a Roman cross, the lowest, most shameful form of execution, reserved for the basest of criminals, insurrectionists, and thieves. And this was the man this new sect called “Messiah.”

Although it was his job, Saul also considered it his personal calling to stamp out this movement. In doing so he could both eliminate a dangerous heresy and improve his position climbing the ranks of religious power. He became a kind of “Dog the Bounty Hunter” of Christians, following leads, chasing them down, and hauling them in to be executed. That is, until Saul of Tarsus had a supernatural encounter with the very Jesus he was seeking to discredit.

On a road leading to Damascus, on his way to stamp out another group of heretical followers, Saul was thrown from his horse. Then, a bright light rendered him blind and helpless, and he was forced to fall into the care of the very Christians he sought to destroy. He came to know his gift of desperation in a profound way.

Under the care of a stranger named Ananias, a follower of the Way, his vision was restored, and a new name and vocation given. He became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. He traveled the known world, sharing the good news of this crucified and resurrected Jesus. The same instincts and character defects that had made him such a formidable foe of Christians throughout the Roman Empire turned him into the greatest proponent of the faith. Multiple incarcerations, stonings, shipwrecks, and near-death experiences couldn’t stop him from painting with ashes. Ultimately, he was executed for his faith in the same way he had been involved with executing others.

Some hurt people who excel in hurting people have radical conversions to become healers.

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