Road to Damascus Moments - October 12
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 1, 2, 3; PM Psalm 4, 7; Micah 7:1-7; Acts 26:1-23; Luke 8:26-39
Today’s Reflection
In the Acts passage for today Paul tells Agrippa the story of that fateful day on the Damascus road when he saw the light of God—the day he heard the voice of God calling him to a new way of life in Christ. Ever since then, people use the words “a road to Damascus experience” to talk about defining moments when they experienced a sudden sense of clarity about what they are meant to do in life.
Hearing Paul tell of his actual experience on the road to Damascus makes me wish it could always be that sudden and that clear for us to know when God is shining a light, to know when it is God who is speaking something new into our lives. In my own experience, there is not one, sudden moment that I can point to and say, “Yes, that is when I knew for sure.” But I can point to a series of events in a period of my life when I felt God nudging me to consider something new.
In 2010, we started attending an Episcopal church, a small mission with only 30-something people on a Sunday morning. In 2011, we moved to a different, larger Episcopal church further away. I got involved as a reader and a chalice bearer. And when they offered a confirmation class in 2012, I decided I would see what it was all about. I went on to be confirmed eight years ago this month, in October 2012 (never guessing that the same bishop confirming me then would, seven years later, ordain me a deacon and a priest). But I did sense I was supposed to “do something,” to somehow make more of a commitment to leadership in the church.
One moment in my own, more winding Damascus road came in January 2013. I had recently been confirmed and shortly after that elected to the vestry of my church. At work that fall, I had submitted my tenure and promotion portfolio, and was awaiting my tenure and promotion decision later in the spring 2013 semester. And then one day, before classes began that January, I heard some startling news via a social media post from a grad school friend. My dissertation advisor from Texas A&M had died. We hadn’t stayed in close contact, but regardless of that, when you earn your PhD you are forever connected with the name and reputation of your dissertation advisor—they are your academic parent, so to speak. And what I learned that day was that my advisor, Jim, had not only died, but he had ended his own life on campus at Texas A&M. And so, on the same day I attended my first Diocesan Convention in Orlando, I went straight from there to catch my flight so I could attend his memorial services in College Station.
Back home in Florida, praying and reflecting whenever I went running at my favorite spot in New Smyrna Beach, the words that continued to come into my mind were these: Jim is gone, but I am still here. And this realization, coming as it did alongside my own journey into the Episcopal church—sparked reflection on making the most of my life, and whether I was fully living into (as Westina Matthews says) “what is mine to do.”
And so, after I went on to be awarded tenure and promotion a few months later and enjoyed a long sabbatical for the rest of 2013, this road to Damascus moment is one of the things that helped me to begin to look at things differently. Jim was a well-regarded academic, a full professor at a Research I university, in one of the top departments in our field, who had won the top book award and other accolades in our academic discipline. And, not only that, he was also much loved and well respected by his students and colleagues. Yet even with all that success, he had lost a sense of perspective on what was most important—and, as a result, he had lost hope.
What happened to Jim was a cautionary tale. But happening when it did—just after my confirmation in the Episcopal church and just before my tenure and promotion decision in the university—it sparked my own discernment and, ultimately, my own change toward a different way of life.
Each of us has the potential of experiencing our own road to Damascus, life-changing encounters with God. The question is this: How do we learn to listen in such a way that, when God speaks, we can know that it is God’s still small voice that we are hearing? And, if we do become attuned to God’s voice, will we allow ourselves to learn to listen to it and be changed?
—Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
What is God moving you away from? What is God moving you towards?
Daily Challenge
Commit to sitting in stillness and quietness for at least 15 minutes today—and maybe even every day this week. As you begin this time of contemplation, pray this simple prayer: “Speak Lord, I am listening.” And then do nothing else for 15 minutes—no devices, no books, no tasks. See how experiencing this kind of “listening prayer” may change your experience of God and yourself.