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Good morning, boys and girls. Have you ever had to do something that made you afraid just to think about it? (let them answer) Maybe your teacher or the principal of the school asked you to stay after school and you were afraid because you didn't know why he wanted to see you.

Or do you know a big bully? (let them answer) A big bully is someone who likes to pick on people who are smaller and not as strong as he is. Those kinds of people can make us afraid when we just think about them.

There was a man by the name of Ananias who had a problem with fear. He was a Christian who lived in a town called Damascus. He had not been a Christian very long, but then no one had in those early days. One day he had a vision. A vision is like a dream only you have it while you are awake. In his vision the Lord spoke to Ananias. The Lord said, "Go over to Straight Street and find the house of a man named Judas and ask there for Paul of Tarsus. He is praying to me right now, for I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying his hands on him so that he can see again!"

Ananias was petrified with fear. Paul of Tarsus was the man who was hunting Christians and killing them. He had the government and all of the religious leaders behind him, and they were looking for Christians everywhere and killing them. The very name of Paul of Tarsus made Christians tremble. Ananias tried to argue with the Lord, but the voice of the Lord told him to go to a certain house on a certain street where Paul was expecting him.

What can you do when you hear the voice of God speaking to you? You do as you are told. Ananias went to the house, and there he found Paul lying on a bed. Paul was blind. Paul had been blinded by a very bright light on the way to Damascus, and he had also heard the voice of Jesus speak to him. When Ananias reached Paul's bed, he was no longer afraid. Something had replaced his fear. He reached out and touched Paul with his hands and said, "Brother Paul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you may be filled with the Holy Spirit and get your sight back."

An amazing thing happened. Paul was able to see instantly. He praised God and thanked Ananias over and over again for coming to see him. Then Paul made Ananias promise to baptize him a Christian. Now Ananias began to think of all of the things that he had heard about Paul. He remembered that this was the man who had been present for the killing of Stephen. He was the man who had caught hundreds of other Christians and made them suffer, and he had now come to the town of Damascus to make Christians suffer and kill them. When Paul could not see he looked so helpless, but now that he could see and move around again, it seemed a little different.

But Ananias remembered something else. The Lord had told him that Paul was going to be the person to teach the Gentiles. There were a lot of Christians who used to be Jews, but there were very few, if any, who had been Gentiles. God must have thought that Paul was something really special. What else could Ananias do but baptize Paul? He did it, and he was glad.

During the next couple of days Paul told other Christians who were friends of Ananias all that had happened to him. He went to the synagogue and preached and told the good news about Jesus and how Jesus was the Son of God. The Jews in the synagogue began to argue with Paul, but he was able to convince many to do as he had done, and they also became Christians. But there were many who did not believe, and they began to make plans to get rid of Paul. When the Christian friends of Paul heard about what was happening, they protected him and hid him. Then one night they put him in a large basket, and when no one was looking they lowered him over the city wall to freedom.

Those were the very first days of Paul's Christian life. Paul would go on to great things, and we will be hearing about him forever. But we should not forget about the man Ananias who had to fight his fears to do what God had commanded him to do.

The next time you find that you are afraid of something that is going to happen or that may happen, I want you to think about the man called Ananias who went to Paul, healed his blindness, and baptized him a Christian.