Why Wait?

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 323, Why Wait?

"And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name." Acts 22:16.

Paul is standing on a stairway in Jerusalem, surrounded by a crowd that minutes earlier had tried to lynch him. And what he chooses to do, with his life hanging by a thread, is tell his own story — the story of the day everything changed.

He recalls Damascus. The light that blinded him on the road. The voice of Jesus. And then, three days of darkness and fasting, until a man named Ananias walks into the room where he was staying and speaks these words that echo across the centuries: and now why do you wait?

Notice that this question isn't idle curiosity. It's a loving confrontation. Paul had already seen Jesus. He had already heard the voice. He already knew, deep in his heart, that his whole life needed to change direction. What was missing wasn't more revelation — it was action. And Ananias, with both gentleness and firmness, puts his finger exactly on that point: why are you still standing still?

And then come the verbs: rise, be baptized, wash away your sins. Three movements, one after another, with no pause between them. The faith Paul was receiving could not stay locked inside his head, could not remain a silent conviction. It needed to become a body moving, water touching skin, a public act anyone there could witness.

And think about who was receiving this invitation. Paul — or rather, Saul, up to that point — had persecuted Christians. He had approved of Stephen's death. He had gone into homes to drag men and women off to prison for their faith alone. If there was ever someone whose past seemed too large to be washed clean, it was him. And still Ananias says: wash away your sins. There is no sin so large that this washing cannot reach it.

But notice the last part too: calling on his name. The cleansing did not come from the water itself, as if it were magic. It came from faith resting only on the name of Jesus. Baptism was the visible gesture of an invisible trust.

I want to ask you the same question Ananias asked Paul: and you — what are you waiting for? Maybe there's something God has already made clear to you — an apology you need to make, a reconciliation you've been postponing, a step of obedience you know is right but keep finding excuses to avoid. The revelation has already arrived. All that's missing is the action.

So today I invite you: name that specific thing, even if only to yourself, and answer Ananias's question with a concrete action today. Not tomorrow. Today.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.