Acts 9:9
There's no right or wrong answer but I'm going through something right now where I feel blind and I don't want food or water and I don't know what the future holds.
I know it's no comparison because Paul didn't know the Lord and I do but...just curious on what you think Saul/Pauls state of mind was?
I think that Paul was thinking "Jesus is LORD!" I think that he had three days to be refined into this truth.
Good question.
Brother Santana,
Saul's whole world was shaken and don't think for a moment that he didn't know the Lord!! He did say, "Who art thou, Lord?" When a Jew comes face to face with the Risen Christ, I believe they know exactly who He is!! How long does it take for someone to "know" the Lord? In an instant? Three days? Five years? (huge grin) In an instant!!
God blinded him and he couldn't see physically but yet God showed Him visions... God showed him Ananias coming in and laying hands on him to receive his sight. And God showed him how much he would suffer for Christ's sake (how could God do that if Paul didn't know the Lord?). And Paul prayed!! That was the first thing Jesus told Ananias to comfort him, "Behold, he prays."
But Santana, please remember that the blind man who had his world rocked and who prayed on Straight Street was NOT the same man who finally wrote, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4.7).
I can only hope and pray that the woman I am today (in all her faults and failures), will not be the same woman when I reach the end of my days. Paul DID know the Lord and grew closer and closer to him as his life went on. Praise God... as it should be!
Take hope as well!!
I think he was repenting. I think he thought of all those faces of the people he had killed for what he now believed in. I see him weeping, and crying bitterly for the souls that he hounded after. I see him filled with regret. He probably refused food and fluids, I know I would.
But as for your feeling blind. Most of us, if we were all honest with one another, are there with you. If we did see, we wouldn't be crying out to God for revival.
What was Paul thinking when he was blind for three days?
I do not know, Scripture does not share this detail but one can always speculate and that is what I am doing.
Before Paul was struck down I get the picture that he was a driven person, one who had goals and was very zealous (Galatians 1:14) in his service to God. No one was going to stop him and he was going to run over people if he had to in his service to God. He would have been self-sufficient. Until. One day. Jesus stopped him cold. He was now at the mercy of others. Totally.
This is where all people have to come to in order for God to be able to work in their hearts. We must feel our own helplessness. As long as we think we are self sufficient, God cannot use us or has He any use for us.
My idea for whatever it is worth...
ginnyrose
Oh My God!!!!!
by snufalapagus
I think he was repenting. I think he thought of all those faces of the people he had killed for what he now believed in.
Twice in the bible are the enemies of God's people struck with blindness, taken into the midst of God's people, given their sight back, fed and then turned free. The first was the Syrians with Elisha and the second was Paul.
Maybe Paul remembered the story as his sight was restored and he was fed and turned free. Maybe he realized then that he had been an enemy of God's instead of a servant.
They are two very particular accounts of this kind, and Paul would have remembered the other.
Might have been a striking way to make sure Paul saw himself as God did.
I liked Snuff's reply.
ceedub said 'Maybe he realized then that he had been an enemy of God's instead of a servant.'
I think it is very true that when we 'see' God as He is - eg 2 Cor 3:18 - we 'see' where we fall short. I don't think God 'struck' Paul with blindness. I think it was more a natural consequence of his having 'seen' 'the Light'.
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