The Heart of St. Paul
We human beings like to be in control of things. We want things to happen according to our plans in the ways that we expect. If we can control everything, we think we can have a pretty good idea of how things will turn out. Before his conversion, it is clear that St. Paul was just like the rest of us, a control freak. He did not like to be suprised. He always wanted to control the outcome.
After his conversion, Paul learns something different from his new teachers, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, teaches St. Paul that our desire to control everything can in fact contradict the will of God. If we want to do God’s will, we need to allow God to control things. In fact, what is needed is usually the humble recognition that we never had any real control in the first place, it has always belonged to God.
Paul writes so eloquently in 2Cor 5:7, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Faith is not about taking a step into the darkness, but rather it is taking a step into the light of Christ. Seeing with the eyes of faith allows us to see God’s plan as it mysteriously unfolds in our daily life. At first, it is frightening to walk by faith, because we put our lives in God’s hands. But really, it is assuring that we walk by faith because God places us in the real world, not the world of our own creation and illusion. We can see joys and sorrows in places where we would have never looked before. Our stepping into faith helps us to realize just how dark the world is without Christ, and how bright the world becomes when the light of Christ’s truth illumines it.
