St. Paul, or Saul as he was then, had the first Damascus Road experience – a meeting with God that turned his life upside down. He changed overnight from being Christianity’s major persecutor to being its major promoter. Yet, every person’s journey to faith in God is different. We tend to focus on Damascus Road experiences, yet very few people have them – we like the dramatic – but God leads us all in different ways. We think that most people’s conversions in the time of Jesus were dramatic – they met Jesus and believed. In the lives of many people that was the case, but what about the lives of those closest to Jesus, His disciples? It seems that none of them had a Damascus Road experience. Their journey to faith and understanding seemed to be a gradual process. My experience is very similar. I can’t give you a time and a place when I became a Christian – it was a gentle journey over several years. I have found the same is true of many many people. Let us not fall into the trap of believing that because our conversion wasn’t dramatic or sudden that it wasn’t just as real as that of St. Paul.
