Called by Grace in God’s Time

But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

When God reveals his Son in us (to us), that moment of recognition can be astonishing. It can be the time when life stands still, when the universe stops its divine vibration, when all noise and movement stops, when truth arrives like a thunderclap and is suddenly and blindingly clear.

This is God’s perfect timing. It’s when he is pleased to do so. Man plays a role. You and I are instruments as the Great Conductor causes us to play so that our notes can be heard by the object of his attention and affection. But we are not the orchestra, nor are we the composer. God has set the symphony in motion through a composition that he alone has written for an audience that he has put in the right place at the right time. No human affected the salvation of Saul of Tarsus. No evangelist, preacher, apostle or missionary gave him the Good News of Jesus Christ. It was delivered straight from the Savior because God had set Saul apart from birth and this was the time.

When is the time? None of us knows. But the reality is that we are to each play the notes that God puts on our hearts to play without worrying why we are to play those notes or how they fit in the symphony or even how the audience will react. God will choose to reveal his son in the audience for his purposes at his time. My only role is to choose to respond to his call to play my notes.