Acts 9:3

"As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven" Acts 9:3

Saul was on his way to Damascus to persecute a distant batch of believers in Jesus. He had no love for them because they were a threat to his precious Judaism. On the way he had an interesting experience. A bright light shown about him and, evidently, he looked at it. After a voice spoke to him with instructions on what to do next, Saul found himself to be blind. We recognize the light to be God. And Saul was blinded by the glory of the Lord.

The story would be pointless and not worth recording if it stopped there. But Saul followed the instructions, was prayed for by Ananias, and was healed of his blindness. Still, that is not the end of the story. Saul began to preach the very Gospel he had formerly despised - and became the persecuted Apostle of Jesus Christ. Of course we know Saul as Paul and owe our salvation to his wonderful works among the European gentiles.

Paul's experience points out something that none of the other examples of "viewing the face of God" seems to make. Paul was radically changed. He even underwent a name change to demonstrate the changes made in his life. When we look on the face of God, we too will be changed. The unfortunate thing is that we often look around for God. We sometimes even enter His presence. But few of us ever take the bold step to gaze into the face of the Father. Oh, we will never be able to make out the features - the glory is far to blinding for that. We will, however, be changed forever. We will never be the "old man" we were. We will never be able to do the things we did once we have seen God.

Maybe that is why we look for Him and never find Him. Perhaps that is why we look around Him but never at Him. We don't want to be changed. We want to remain in total control of our lives. We just want to enjoy a bit of the glory while we continue in our old paths. We want to sit on the spiritual "fence" and balance precariously between Heaven and Hell. The really weird thing is that we honestly believe we can do it! Amen and Amen.