Village Shepherd

There are many people whose lives have been completely changed by a single event. Sadly, it's mostly traumatic events which change lives. Fairly recently, the lives of Lucie Blackman's family utterly changed, when they couldn't get in touch with their daughter, who was living and working in Hong Kong for a while. They gave up everything to find out what had happened to their daughter, only to discover that she'd been murdered.

Years ago, young estate agent Suzy Lamplugh disappeared after leaving the office to meet a client. She's never been seen since, and her body was never found. It changed her family's lives, and through her mother, we now have the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, the national charity for personal safety.

It's often the parents in such cases who become utterly single-minded in their fierce determination to discover what happened to their offspring, often going on searching for the truth for many years. Such is the life-changing power of love.

Some people's lives change because they suddenly discover they have a life-threatening illness, and with the end of their life actually in sight, their priorities reverse. Things which used to be important are no longer important, and those things which never seemed to matter before, suddenly become overwhelmingly important.

Sometimes, people's lives turn around completely because of a spiritual experience, an experience of God. St. Paul was one of these. As he rode towards Damascus, determined to stamp out Christianity because he genuinely believed it to be a false religion, he had a dramatic spiritual experience in which he met with the risen Christ.

This was a hugely important experience not only for him - it changed his life - but also for all the rest of us, because St. Paul was the first person who had never met Jesus in the flesh, but nonetheless had a spiritual experience of him. And that opened the way for all the rest for us. We can't meet Jesus in the flesh, but even after all these years, we can still have a spiritual experience of him.

Such an experience turns life upside down. St Paul was a solid, respectable Pharisee, with extremely good credentials. He was a proper Jew, born into the Jewish religion through being a member of the tribe of Benjamin, rather than being a convert. He studied the law and became a Pharisee, that most zealous of Jews. And knowing the law inside out, he kept it rigorously, so was a pillar of the establishment.

That sort of life brings its own rewards. Status can be a very important aspect of human life, and one which many human beings crave. Status usually brings with it security and wealth and respect, so that life is pleasant and comfortable. St. Paul had spent his life so far seeking just those qualities, and because he was good at what he did, he'd risen to the top.

But then God took a hand, and the experience on the Damascus Road shook Paul so much that his entire value system was turned upside down. Status no longer mattered and it was just as well, since his status soon dropped to below zero. Wealth no longer mattered, and that was just as well too, for he soon had no wealth and although he continued his work as a tent-maker to some extent, he had to rely largely on the kindness and support of others.

And with that dramatic experience on the Damascus Road, Paul realized for the first time that he'd got it wrong, that his religiosity wasn't leading him towards God, but away from God. That was a revelation to Paul, for like many religious people, he had believed until then that rigorously following the smallest religious rules kept him well in with God. But he soon discovered he'd been completely wrong in that assessment, and that God isn't looking for religiosity. Fortunately, because his values had been so utterly turned upside down, losing face no longer mattered to Paul, and he had the humility to admit that he was wrong.

It was a huge change for Paul. He completely gave up his former life, and with a great surge of love for God, devoted his life to spreading the Christian gospel anywhere people would listen, and even where they wouldn't listen.

He suffered immensely both through the viciousness of human hands and through natural disasters, but he never gave up. That first meeting with God on the Damascus Road drove him ever onwards, and the disasters he encountered were as nothing compared to his relationship with God.

Some people today have similar encounters with the risen Christ, encounters which completely change their lives. Sadly, unlike St Paul, whose theology changed and matured throughout his life, some of those people stick at that point of conversion and never move forwards. And that's a shame.

For other people, there's nothing quite so dramatic as one moment of conversion, but there is an increasing awareness of God and of the things of God, so that their life gradually turns towards God like a flower gradually opening its petals. And these people generally do slowly but surely mature in their Christianity.

But there are yet others who simply follow the rules of religion, substituting the rules for the real thing, and so never have any kind of an encounter with the risen Christ. That's the saddest thing of all, for God is waiting with arms outstretched and heart open to pour his gifts into every human being.

The power of love is life-changing, and God's love for each of us far exceeds even the fiercest human love. But it can only be experienced if your value list is right. Wealth and status need to drop very low on the list, and God needs to come up very high. And when that's happened, then we're ready to want to receive God's gifts.