ONCE WE WERE A CERTAIN WAY . Then we were not that way anymore. Something momentous took place between two dramatically different iterations of self, perhaps during the deluge of a watershed-like moment seen starkly in the jagged light of a strange lightning, or maybe similar to the swelling immense power of an off-shore sea change moved by the violent winds and barometric forces of an overhead typhoon.

Our encounter with God is like this. Life is one way, then it can never be that way again—we are moved by a power outside our control into an unexpected state of being. It was that way for Paul, and from his experience he says, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17) We are changed in a moment, as Paul was, in belief about life significance, in thought directing life actions, and in emotional engagement with life circumstances.

We may recognize a shift in perception, but we do not understand the moment while we are in it. Our concept of time and reality is supernaturally altered, for it is the Spirit of God working in us, reaching down or across or through the boundaries of time and connecting eternity with a need that pre-exists within us. (cf. Ecc. 3:11) Maybe the moment is instantaneous, or maybe it is like an elastic bond that connects between an anchor point and an object, which then contracts, pulling us forward through a decade or more to the point of new beginning. However that works, different for each of us, we awake in the new reality of “What now?”

Paul’s moment came on the Damascus road (cf. Acts Ch. 9), where a compressed moment spent in the presence of the Lord Jesus tore him from his previous life even as it propelled him into a new life. The leaving behind of the old and the fullness of the new began in an eternal instant, but took footsteps through the sands of linear time to fulfill destiny. Years later, writing in the Book of Galatians, he reflects on this moment and what came after. He acknowledges himself as the formerly zealous Saul of Tarsus, who in his “previous way of life in Judaism intensely persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (Gal. 1:13)

Paul’s conversion re-imaged his identity (cf. Gen. 1:27), and, more importantly, revealed God’s sovereign purpose for his redemption. And so he says, “God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” (Gal. 1:15-16a) God’s eternal pre-existent knowing and purposing of Paul implanted him at a specific moment in time as a seed in his mother; later, that same moment stretched to touch Paul at his most zealous point of identity, and later still that same moment encompassed the totality of his being—all of his subsequent life was lived out in the power of those inter-connected realized moments.

Paul’s later reflection upon this process offers a thought that each of us should consider carefully regarding outcomes of our own miraculous and mysterious moment(s). He says that, “My immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.” (Gal. 1:16b-17)

Note that Paul did not immediately plunge into the active work ministry of his revealed destiny. He understood, intuitively and spiritually, that he needed a narrow focus as his destiny evolved into certainty. Instead, he went away to the Arabian desert to be alone with God. After three years, he went to Jerusalem where he “Got acquainted with Cephas” (Peter), but “none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.” (Gal. 1:18-19) Both Peter and James would be foundational to the acceptance and furthering of Paul’s world-changing gospel ministry.

The lesson for us is that it is God who calls, God who equips, and God who sends. His plans are eternal, his timing is always perfect, and his resources are inexhaustible. It is him that we must seek for these truths. But critically, between the moment and the aftermath is a time of equipping—to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Pet. 3:18)

Jesus said that he would leave, and that the Father would send “the Holy Spirit, who will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26) John, in his first letter, says “You have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, remain in him.” (1 John 2:20, 27) We are in a continuous moment with God. Everything that is real about our spiritual and our eternal life only exists fully in the overflow from this evergreen moment.

Q. Am I absent in my own moment or present in God’s?