Free Empire's End by Jerry Jenkins, James S. MacDonald Page A

circle, scanning the expanse of the Arabian desert that would never again look the same to me.
Thank You, Lord, thank You, Lord, thank You, Lord
.
    I wiped the sweat from my face and beard and ran my hands over my scalp and through my thinning rim of hair. I shook out and donned my mantle, covering my arms against the blistering sun. Getting down proved trickier than going up, though I prided myself in my athleticism for a man in his mid-thirties.
    Despite being in a hurry to get back to Yanbu, I resisted the urge to run. My mind, my heart, my soul were full and I needed to reflect upon the most sacred moments of my life. I set off at a deliberate pace, knowing the rest of my day would be full of mundane chores but unable to give them a thought. My mind was bursting with the things of God.
    Nothing could compare to the moment Jesus revealed Himself to me on the road to Damascus, but that had been a shock, an ordeal nearly unto death. My life had altogether changed from darkness to light in an instant.
    But this, today, this unspeakable privilege! To sit in the presence of the Holy One! To hear His voice! To be taught!
    Already I had repented of my notion that I would not need quill or parchments. True, I would not forget what I had just heard, but neither did I want to miss the joy of putting it in permanent form. And who knew how long this would continue? Alastor said the Lord had told him he andthe others were to leave me alone “in the mornings.” How many mornings? How much did the Lord have to teach me before He sent me to the Gentiles? I was ready to go now!
    It was no wonder He had already needed to teach me patience through His silence. What more could I tell the Gentiles than what I had testified to the Jews in Damascus, that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God? That He had died on the cross for the sins of the world and had been resurrected on the third day and now sits at His Father’s right hand, interceding for His own?
    To me that was enough. It was the truth.
    But plainly, God had more for me to learn before He sent me out. Who could understand Him if they had eternity to study Him? I had read and memorized His laws and doctrines and precepts since childhood—yea, I had even learned to read from the ancient Scriptures—yet I understood little. I had yearned to talk not just
to
God, but
with
Him for my whole life, and yet I had not recognized the Messiah when He came. In fact, I saw Him as an imposter, the opposite of the Divine. I opposed Him, reviled Him, persecuted Him, was glad when He was executed, and went on terrorizing His followers—until He Himself confronted me.
    So perhaps what He had to teach me was less about Himself than about me. I was beginning to see His ingenious design, giving me my unique background and upbringing in order to make an apostle of me to the Gentiles. But only He could make me an apostle. Those already known as Jesus’ apostles had encountered Him personally before He had ascended to heaven. They had seen Him in the flesh, heard Him speak and teach, seen His miracles, performed miracles themselves in His name.
    After His death, burial, and resurrection, I had seen Him on the road, and the very experience had blinded me for three days.
    Now He had miraculously delivered me here, and I was hearing Him speak and teach.
    Would I also perform miracles in His name? I felt so unworthy.
    How interesting that He had counseled me to resist the temptation to seek out His apostles, because there was little I would rather have done than crept into Jerusalem straightaway for that very purpose. I would have to evade the Sanhedrin, of course, not to mention all the victims who had much against me. Then there would be the matter of convincing the apostles that I was now their brother in Christ. Who would believe that? I had been their chief enemy! I couldn’t blame them if it took years to convince them. But how I wanted to revel in their