Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit (Great Lives from God's Word)

by Charles R. Swindoll

Some have made truly radical decisions to find solitude and silence.

That’s what happened to Saul in Arabia. He met with God, who helped him figure life out.

Third, instead of seeking a place of power, be still and release.

Sadly, I can report that the loneliest, most unfulfilled people I’ve ever met are people at the top. They’ve arrived, but most are lonely, living on empty, desperate to find a meaning for their existence.

Unless we are ready for it, power will destroy us. This is no small matter in the Church today. Because of our wholesale ignorance of the importance of hidden preparation, we have thrust untold numbers of workers into the limelight before they were ready.9

professional athletes are classic examples.

My advice to you is to stop trying to be the tops in your field. Be an excellent whatever.

Do the very best you can with what God has given to you. If His plan includes bringing you to higher levels of success, He’ll do that, in His time, according to His master plan. Your part is to get out of the traffic and set your mind on kingdom priorities—stuff that really matters.

Since we’re all in a fallen world, all of us face the need to make a difference. That starts by being different.

Whether we’re single or married, younger or older, give us a dissatisfaction for the energy of the flesh, and show us the value of the hidden life as You prepare ours for whatever You have planned for the future.

though all of us were raised to value it, an independent spirit doesn’t please God.

That truth cuts cross-grain against the way we were taught to cultivate an independent attitude.

There is perhaps no more chilling example of the independent spirit taken to the extreme than in the tragic, criminal life of Timothy McVeigh.

Thankfully, most people will never take an independent spirit to such hostile extremes.

Yet the subtle influences of that sort of thinking counteract our ability to depend on the Lord and each other.

THE VIRTUES OF A DEPENDENT SPIRIT

each life-sustaining beat of our hearts is a gift from God—we’re really not that independent after all.

We not only need the Lord, we need each other. Desperately. That need for others only intensifies when the barometer of life drops to the bottom of the gauge—when the winds of adversity blow hard against our souls. We cannot make it on our own. We were created for dependence, not independence. We cannot direct our own steps in the right way without the Lord and without each other.

AMEN!

God waits to assist those who finally come to the point in their lives where they cannot help themselves. In fact, He brings each of us to that place where we’ll willingly surrender and say, “You take over. You give me strength. My way hasn’t worked. You teach me to lean and to trust and to wait. I need You, Lord and I need Your people.”

Quite likely, you too were raised to embrace and nurture the independent spirit within. Over the years, you have grown stubbornly independent, convinced that you need no one but yourself to see life through to the end.

We love to promote an independent spirit without ever considering the value of time-forged character.

God never promotes like that. God takes His time. When God plans to use us, He puts us through the paces. He allows a certain amount of suffering. God may use the strong, stubborn, independent individualists in the world, but not long-term. He much prefers the humble, the broken, the bruised, the humble, even the crushed. He works much more effectively in the lives of people who’ve learned they can’t make it on their own, especially those who acknowledge they desperately need God and others.

Saul learned dependence through a series of circumstances where, without the assistance of lesser-known individuals, he wouldn’t have been able to continue.

Saul’s intellect no doubt focused on a new theology. As he put it together, I’m sure those new and fresh insights came as a welcome balm to verbally abused people, stinging from the whip of legalism. He may have been smart and gifted, but not everyone in Damascus appreciated Saul’s words. By now his ministry was taking off. His growing popularity was viewed as a threat by the Jewish leaders. So they devised a plan to rid their city of this gospel-preaching menace.

His need forced the once- independent Saul to depend on a nameless group of faithful disciples to rescue him from certain death, by means of a basket hanging from a rope.

Have you been in such need that your only hope for going on was being rescued by some caring, faithful friends? There is nothing like a basket rescue to teach a little humility.

“Paul’s career began, like that of Moses, with flight and with a long period of waiting, waiting, nothing but waiting. This makes the flight from Damascus so significant. It forced Paul into the long wait in which he fully learned he was nothing, that his mightiest asset was utter weakness, weakness which enabled God to do everything with him and through him.”2

“He was trying to associate with the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple” (v. 26). Rejected again, only this time by those he most wanted to meet. Fear stood between them and the zealous, gifted preacher.

No, don’t forget those times. Those painful memories are part of God’s gracious plan to break your strong spirit of independence. They’ve become an essential segment of your story—your testimony of God’s grace.

Ego deflation & humility

But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked with him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus.

For the first time in his ministry, Saul spoke freely about Christ in Jerusalem, in the company of respected disciples—set free to be himself for the glory of God. What made the difference? Barnabas! You may be a Barnabas today. Do you know someone who has been kicked in the teeth because he has a bad track record? Someone who can’t get a hearing, yet she’s turned her life around and nobody wants to believe it? I urge you to step up like Barnabas did for Saul. Look for those individuals who need a second chance—a large dose of grace to help them start over in the Christian life. Everybody needs a Barnabas at one time or another. And for Saul there would be others.

The stubborn patterns of fierce independence take a long time to break.

Only God is important. His plan is to build His church, no matter how relentless the opposition or how clever the enemy. When He’s got a man He’s preparing to be used for a little while, He brings along some lesser-known folks to help him down a wall or gain an audience with some prejudiced disciples or, in this case, help him escape.

A bunch of unknowns help him escape Jerusalem—the city he once owned. Now he fled her gates to preserve his life.

I don’t know all the reasons he returned to Tarsus, but I do know God doesn’t make mistakes when He leads us to specific places. This is especially true when it’s to places we would not have chosen on our own.

all part of

His plan to teach us lessons in humility as we learn the v...

“So the disciples brought the hunted preacher down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus; not improbably he resumed tent-making there, content to await the Lord’s will and bidding. Years passed slowly. Possibly four...

you’re gifted and the need is great, waiting makes no sense at all. We want progress now, before we get older, or before people decide to go somewhere else to find truth. I mean, “C’mon, Lord . . . the people need us now!”

No they don’t. Notice the very next sentence in the biblical narrative: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase” (Acts 9:31).

The secret of the church then and now is not a remarkably gifted individual like Saul (or someone as uniquely gifted and talented as you).

The secret to the blessing and health of any church is Almighty God. Period. It’s not you, it’s certainly not me, or anyone else we may be tempted to think is indispensable to the cause.

Or any church worker or pastor.

That’s not God’s way. Only on the rarest of occasions does He choose to use someone mightily while that person is young, immature, and new in the faith. Not even for a leadership position in a local church should a new convert be considered (I Timothy 3:6).

Those projects (and dozens of others) called for a depth of character, forged through the lessons that taught him dependence—both on God and on others.

The Message, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, wraps up this part of the narrative nicely: “Things calmed down after that and the church had smooth sailing for a while. All over the country—Judaea, Samaria, Galilee—the church grew. They were permeated with a deep sense of reverence for God. The Holy Spirit was with them, strengthening them. They prospered wonderfully.”4

In Tarsus he had the time to learn that he needed them. It wasn’t about independence. It was about his discovering the value of dependence. Tragically, some never learn.

I don’t want us to miss three timeless lessons from this story of lesser-known players in Saul’s life.

First, value others.

Nobody can handle all the pressure over the long haul. Companionship and accountability are essential!

You think you can go it alone—and so far, your plan has worked.