Acts 22:10

So I said, “What shall I do, Master?” And the Lord said to me, “Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be informed of all the things that have been arranged for you to do.”

Encountering the risen Christ, your automatic response will be an awestruck “What shall I do, Master?”

Then we will be told to go into “Damascus”—a place in which we can hear what has been arranged for us to do. This Damascus can be a physical place. It is definitely a state of consciousness, of listening, of attunement where we can actually discern what our Master asks of us—what has been arranged for us to uniquely do that only we have been called to do since before time began.

So where might your Damascus be? Do you need to get away from the noise of life, and retreat in order to hear?

Do you need to go to a different mindset? To a place where there is no mind clutter, no lies deafening you to the Master’s voice?

This reminds of the visual aid many teachers have used to illustrate the connection between stillness and clarity. Imagine a bottle of water with some dirt in it being shaken up and moved around without a break.

What happens?

The water turns and remains cloudy.

But what about if you set the bottle down on a table for a while, say, even for just five minutes or so?

The dirt settles to the bottom causing the water to be clear and easy to see through.

It’s absolutely amazing the clarity of mind that comes if you can simply sit still without thinking for just a few minutes.

It is only in that stillness that we shall clearly hear what our task is.

~Brother David Steindl-Rast

Acts 21:19-20

He greeted them and laid out before them everything which God had done through his ministry among the Gentiles, telling it all step by step.

They praised God when they heard it.

This is the highest level of encouragement for me—hearing what God is doing in the world. It causes a praising of God to well up and spring forth from inside you, bolstering your faith.

I don’t wanna so much about hear what people are doing. I hear that a zillion times every week. I want to hear what God is doing through people. That is information not as readily available.

Hopefully this is what our Sunday gatherings are full of, just as it appears it was in these early days of Christianity. Total focus on God and what He is up to, encouraging one another through the stories which are, we pray, plentiful.

God is doing so much everyday everywhere. May we bring constant attention to it in order to drown out those loud voices of doom and gloom thrust in our faces at every turn.

Acts 20:31

Yes, even from among yourselves people will arise, saying things which will distort the truth, and they will draw the disciples away after them.

Anyone who points to themselves more than Jesus is a false teacher.

Anyone who draws people toward anything or anyone more than toward Jesus is a false teacher leading people astray.