Acts 9:18-22. Right after Saul was knocked off his horse and blinded by Christ while on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, he has been visited by a Jew named Ananias. Ananias was told by God to go and tend to Saul, even though Saul was a great persecutor of Christians. Ananais lays his hands on Saul and says that the Lord Jesus has sent him to Saul so that Saul can regain his sight. "And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight." Saul then immediately goes to the synagogues of Damascus proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God. The Jews are amazed and question among themselves whether this is the same man who "made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon on this name?" And isn't the whole reason that he's here to bind up Christians and bring them before the chief priests? But Saul just got stronger and louder - proclaiming and proving to all that Jesus is the Son is the Christ.

I wonder if what happened to Saul happens to everyone (to a lesser extent) at some point? I know it has happened to me. Obviously, I was not knocked off my horse and blinded by Christ himself, but my experience is really just as amazing when I think about it. We go along, so convinced that we are in the right, but really hurting so many people in the process of living our lives, and suddenly - BOOM - the floor drops out, we are forced to question everything, we realize we were relying on lies to sustain our worldview. In other words, we are suddenly confronted by the Truth.

It is an incredibly disorienting and, yes, blinding experience! When we have been so seduced by lies and suddenly an unexpectedly see the Truth, we do not immediately recognize it. It throws us into a state of confusion, a cognitive dissonance, a blindness. It takes a while to resolve this confusion, and we do run the risk of settling back into the comfort of the lies we have always known. They bring us some kind of false "peace" and "security" by being comfortable, familiar, and what the world expects from us. But we can never really go back once we have seen the Truth. We will constantly be plagued by our conscience if we try to go back to the lies.

Saul (soon to be Paul) is lucky that God sent Ananais to him. A follower of Christ is exactly what Saul needed to "see" again - to realize that these Christians are not the evil "other" but are instead loving, caring people who are following the person he met on the road and can lead him back to him, to the Truth. Not all of us are lucky enough to get as obvious a sign from God, nor as wonderful a visitor as Ananias, but we all need to allow the scales to fall from our eyes. I think God gives us each our own road to Damascus moment in life, as well as the people we need to help us see the light once they happen.