Spirituality And Speed Series

Jamie Buckingham has written 20 of the best Christian book of the past decade. And in one of

them called The Last Word he tells of how, even for a Christian sometimes, everything can go rapidly

wrong. He lived in a quiet country home, but it was one with an unusual water system. He had a cut

off valve in the back yard, which diverted water from the system to a pond. One evening he was in

bed when his 14-year-old daughter was taking a shower. He heard gurgling in the heating vent, and

suddenly he remembered that he had forgotten to reopen the valve after he washed the car. Water

would be backing up into the house. He leaped up, grabbed a flashlight and raced down the stairs

and out into the back yard. It was already flooded and so he was sloshing through icy water in his

bare feet. When he got to the pump-house he knelt in the cold and reach down into the hole to turn

the valve. Something slimy moved and he jerked back quickly. He caught his pajamas on the wire

fence and tore them. As a Christian he had given up swearing, but now he needed a substitute, and so

he slung his flashlight into the pond in anger. As usual it solved nothing, and he was now in total darkness.

He ripped himself off the barbed wire and sloshed his way back to the house.

He stepped in some doggie doo and it felt terrible, and so he began to hop in the high grass. He

ran a thorn between his big toe and its neighbor. This was the final straw, and he lost control. He

went crashing through the shrubs and into the house with his pajamas ripped half off and his back and

neck bleeding. He woke up everybody in the house at the top of his voice. He never saw the humor

of the situation at all, but his family got at least 5 weeks of laughter out of it. Life can change so

rapidly that it is frightening. Here was a Christian leader who was living a life of tranquility, and in a

matter of minutes he was in a rage of anger. His spirituality was radically changed with such rapid

speed.

The good news is that the reverse can also happen. You can be in a rage of anger and suddenly

be changed and calmed, and find yourself in a state of peace. This is what we see happening to Paul

on the road to Damascus. He was like a fire-breathing dragon marching to incinerate the church

when suddenly he was confronted by Christ. Paul was instantly transformed into a disciple saying,

"What shall I do Lord?"

This could be in the Guiness Book of World Records as the fastest transformation in history. Instant

servant-hood is what we have here. The second Paul knew that the Christ he persecuted was not dead,

but alive and powerful, he knew he was on the wrong side, and it didn't take him anytime at all to switch

sides. He immediately called Jesus, whom he considered a false prophet, the Lord of his life.

You could go your whole life not believing there was such a thing as a duckbill platypus, but

then when you are suddenly confronted by one, and there it is in your presence, it does not take many

seconds before your years of doubt and disbelief are gone, and you are a believer. So Paul, who

thought Jesus was a deceiver, discovered that he was a solid rock of reality, and instantly he began to

build his life on that rock. Everything happened so fast with Paul. He was converted in seconds, and

then in verse 13 he was instantly healed and his sight was restored. In verse 16 Ananias gave him a

two sentence sermon and then said, what are you waiting for-get up and be baptized." Usually a

baptism class will last longer than 3 or 4 seconds, but this is Paul we are dealing with, and he could

be called Speed for a nick name, for the whole process of justification and sanctification is

enormously speeded up for him.

Go, go, go is the theme of this chapter of his life. In verse 18 God spoke to him and God's first

word is not all that surprising in the light of this rapid chain of events. God said, "Quick, leave

Jerusalem immediately." God is usually not in a hurry, but in His dealings with Paul in this chapter,

the name of the game is speed. Seeing this motivated me to search the Scriptures to discover what it

has to say about the subject of speed. What I discovered is that it is a large subject, which cannot be