Suited for the Job

Readings:
I Chronicles 15
Acts 9:1-9

Focus:
Acts 9:1-2:"Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, went to the high priest and applied for letters to the synagogues at Damascus authorizing him to arrest any followers of the new way whom he found, men or women, and bring them to Jerusalem."

It's interesting to me that throughout the Bible, people's personalities remain the same. It's another detail that proves the reality of what we read. These weren't just invented characters; these were real people. Peter, for example, was always ready to throw himself whole-heartedly into things: when he saw Jesus walking on the water, that made him want to do it, too; when he understood why Jesus wanted to wash the disciples' feet, he asked Jesus to wash not just his feet but his whole body; when he was on a boat and he saw Jesus on the shore, he jumped out of the boat and plunged to shore.

Saul (Paul) also shows a consistent personality. What he believes, he believes firmly, and he is so convinced that he wants to go not only to people where he lives, but also to people in other towns, and carry his message there as well. So, before he was a Christian, he was so committed that he got permission to go hunt out the Christians there so that he could destroy this belief that he found to be wrong.

Of course, as we see, God had other plans for Saul: he had chosen him to be his apostle to the Gentiles. And this is another thing that I love about seeing Saul's personality. God picked a person with a perfect personality for the job he had in mind. Saul was a person driven to carry his message far and near. That's exactly the kind of person God wanted, because he wanted his message carried to lands far and near. God didn't pick any person and then mold him into the kind of person he needed. God picked the kind of person he needed and converted him--molded him into the kind of believer he wanted.

God does this with us, too. When he has a job for us to do, he doesn't pick out a job we'll hate. He picks out jobs for us that are things that we are already suited for. Or rather, I should say, he has jobs that need to be done, and he picks us to do them because we are the kinds of people who are suited for those jobs. Or probably even more likely, God planned us and the jobs for each other. And so we will not have to grit our teeth and take on some task that we hate for God. In order to serve God, we will find that we will end up doing something that is just up our alley, like Saul did after he became Paul.