Acts 9:1

Saul was a deeply religious Jewish leader who saw the earliest followers of Jesus as dangerous heretics threatening everything he held sacred. The 'disciples' were ordinary men and women who believed Jesus was the Messiah and had risen from the dead — a claim that infuriated the religious establishment. The 'high priest' was the most powerful religious authority in Jerusalem, and Saul was seeking official letters of authorization to travel to Damascus and arrest Christians there. The phrase 'breathing out murderous threats' is not hyperbole — Saul had already been present and approving at the stoning of a man named Stephen, one of the first Christian martyrs. At this moment in the story, Saul genuinely believed God approved of what he was doing.

God of impossible turnarounds, thank you that you did not give up on Saul — and that you have not given up on anyone I love. Give me the courage to keep praying for people I have quietly written off, and the humility to admit that I, too, might still be walking in the wrong direction. Amen.

The man who would one day write 'love is patient, love is kind' was once known for breathing murder. That is not a metaphor or an exaggeration for effect. Before his encounter with Jesus, Saul dragged families from their homes, stood watching approvingly while a man named Stephen was stoned to death, and was now heading to a foreign city to do it all over again. He was, by any reasonable measure, the last person on earth anyone would have nominated to become Christianity's greatest missionary. And yet Acts 9 begins precisely here — at the worst chapter of Saul's biography — because that is apparently where God likes to start. Think about someone in your life who seems too far gone — too hostile, too hardened, too set against faith or decency or change. Notice if you have quietly, maybe even charitably, written them off. This verse is a quiet challenge to that kind of giving up. The same God who interrupted a murderer on a dusty road to Damascus is still interrupting lives today. You might be one conversation, one crisis, one unexpected moment away from watching the most unlikely transformation you have ever seen. Or you might be the Saul in someone else's story — not yet knowing what is about to happen to you.