Acts 9:15-16: Told Before He Goes

But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

Acts 9:15-16 (NIV)

Told Before He Goes

The manager takes her into the office at the end of a shift and closes the door, and then tells her the whole of it before she answers. Nights on the unit nobody bids for. What it does to a person’s sleep in the first two months and what it does after that. Which weekends are gone. How long the last three lasted, by name, and why each of them left.

She asks one question and gets a straight answer to it. Then she says yes, in the room, with the door still shut.

Ananias is sent to lay his hands on the man who’d come to town with authority to arrest people who called on that name. He says as much before he goes, and he hears back a description of the man he’s being sent to: “my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.”

God adds what he intends to do with him. “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Ananias hears all of it before he goes.

I decided a long while back that I’d rather know what a thing will cost before I say yes to it. The times I didn’t ask were the times I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

God tells Ananias what Saul is for and that the name will cost him, and Saul is told he will be shown how much. The telling is most of what Ananias has been given to go on, and it comes to the man who has to decide whether to go.

The manager writes a start date on a sticky note and hands it across the desk. No promises about how it’ll go, nothing about her being the right person for it, no thanks. She puts the note in her badge holder and goes out to her car.