If you’ve spent any time around an Evangelical community, you’ve likely been blessed to hear a current-day “Damascus Road” story or two.
Named after Saul’s conversion story (both to Paul and to Christ), they are powerful, impactful, monumental experiences that turn someone directly to Jesus in an unavoidable way.
Apostle Paul tells the story of his encounter with Jesus several times throughout the Book of Acts. I imagine there were dozens of unrecorded times that he shared his story as well. By reading Acts, we can see how he used his story to share the Gospel.
Today, we can still hear miraculous stories of a life forever changed after meeting Jesus in a big way.
What if you don’t have a dramatic Christian testimony?
Throughout my teens and twenties, hearing these powerful testimonies would bring me to tears of joy for the person, unquestionably. If I’m honest, it did something else that I didn’t like.
It stirred up comparisons in my heart, something we could all be better for avoiding in just about every area of life.
When I would be asked to tell the story of when I accepted Jesus as my Savior, it would cause me to panic, ashamed of the lack of excitement I perceived within my testimony. I would brush it off with a quick comment that was neither fully true nor at all inspiring. Perhaps worse, I would grasp at straws of embellishment to make it ‘worthy’ of being told.
Either version of how that would go ultimately undersold Jesus’ work in my life and likely brought exactly zero souls closer to Him.
In truth, I don’t recall a point in my life that I didn’t have Jesus. There is not an individual “before/after Jesus hinge” moment to which I can point. I don’t have a grand story where I walked away from my faith only for Him to blind me and call me back.
Instead, I have dozens and dozens of quiet moments – seeds that rooted and directed me closer to Him. For many years, I found this challenging to articulate in any real way.
In speaking more boldly about this challenge in the recent past, I have come to discover three things:
- This is not as uncommon as I had believed or assumed.
- It doesn’t mean that I don’t truly know Jesus.
- The ‘boring’ stories also reach people who need to know the Lord.
My Story – When Faith Becomes a Checklist
My parents set the foundation for my faith undoubtedly – something I’ll forever be grateful to them for pressing in. I was, however, treating my relationship with God as a checklist of dos and don’ts. It was a transactional relationship at best, a bargaining one at worst.
Rules are easy for me to follow, especially when they are black and white. I could easily walk around Earth and avoid murdering people. I could also easily hide judgment, anger, and hatred in the quiet places of my heart that allowed me to still play the “good” rule-follower part.
When I was fourteen, I took confirmation vows. It was a promise of surrender and obedience without any acknowledgment of the importance or value of the work Jesus already did.
It was another checkmark on a long list of what I needed to do to earn salvation.
The harder I fought to maintain that checklist, the more I would find myself living in anxiety, stress, and overwhelming guilt.
Becoming a mom really showcased this battle. My inability to be self-reliant in handling it all, the striving, left me feeling fully depleted. I was saying that I trusted God – and watched him show up in huge, life-changing ways. But the mundane, day-to-day stuff – I wasn’t really bringing Him into. I’d reach seasons of frustration and anxiety before I’d think to talk to Jesus about the spiral I was in.
I was so focused on what I could do (or not do) and never focused on what Jesus already did.
One of many small moments that started to crack this exhausting cycle was on a daily drive from work to pick up our kids. I don’t remember what specifically I was walking through that day. I don’t recall what area of my life felt hard. What I remember is exiting I-90, listening to Natalie Grant’s King of the World on the radio.
I’d probably heard the song a thousand times, but in this moment, every word broke me for how true it was, ringing in my life.
“How could I make you so small
When you’re the one who holds it all.
When did I forget that you’ve always been the king of the world?”
While cry-singing along with the radio, the words that hit me, which I immediately typed into my phone while waiting at a red light, were not actually lyrics from the song but rather:
“When did I forget that you are God, and I am not?”
I have thought those words were part of the song for many years – I cannot find them, but I know beyond a shadow of doubt that those were the words in that moment God needed me to hear.
You Don’t Have to Earn God’s Love
Life didn’t change for me that day. I didn’t immediately stop trying to earn something I had already received. But through dozens of moments before and after this one (many more I’m sure I’ve missed), God continues to pursue me and remind me:
By nature, I am a control freak, perfectionist, wildly independent gal who fails miserably when I try to bring Him down to eye-to-eye with me. Through Jesus, I know I am recklessly loved by the God of this universe.
“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate [me] from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus [my] Lord”. (Romans :8:38-39)
I don’t have to earn brownie points to get Jesus to notice me, accept me, love me. I just have to keep walking with and behind Him.
In full transparency – I’m still awake at 3am sometimes; I still get stressed; I still have moments of anxiety. I don’t have it all together, and often I realize far too late that I’ve taken the reins again. But the God of this universe is faithfully pursuing me, just as He is pursuing you.
For those that have “Damasus Road” stories, keep telling your story! It needs to be heard over and over again, just as Paul did throughout the book of Acts.
There are quieter stories too, and those storytellers need to also speak up and be honest. Acts is sprinkled with big conversion stories. It is bursting at the seams with seeds being planted, turned into sprouts, nurtured into roots. Both turn hearts to the only One that matters…
JESUS.
Tell your story to someone. Whether you lean into the monumental or embrace the seemingly mundane – it is all used for his glory.
