By Ken Laue

Have you ever been moved to the point of weeping tears for someone you care for dearly?

Maybe it’s over problems or obstacles they are facing, their pain and suffering, or your own fears for them. Maybe it’s because they have passed away.

In any case, you are just barely getting a taste of the feelings and care that your Heavenly Father has for that person in particular, and for people in general.

In the case of loved ones that He has taken from you, it allows you to now get a glimpse of His over-powering desire to have them home with Himself.

If He chooses to heal that person or to otherwise extend their earthly life, you get a glimpse of the overpowering restraint and patience He exercises in delaying His own great desire to have them home in His Heaven.

As a result, we can understand, perhaps, why He seems so slow to deal with outright evil people.

Could it be that He is hoping for a "Saul moment” in that wicked person's life, where they would be confronted by God and transformed into a Paul?

After all, was it not God who saw that very sperm cell and egg that grew into that charming and precious baby; the forces and abuses that acted on that beautiful child as he or she grew up, that caused him or her to twist and warp, and in the process of time, grow up into an unwitting ally of Hell (or even a willing one)?

Now as we are engulfed in evil times, with liars, cheaters, fraudsters, and tyrants ruining our nation and the world, we must take courage in the Father's love.

I'm thinking of how hard God tried to redeem Pharaoh with multiple displays of divine power, and chances God gave to Pharaoh through His prophet, Moses. After all of that patient direction, Pharaoh chose to reject God and had to be destroyed.

So too, some of the people in positions of authority in our world are akin to Pharaoh in their evil hearts. Consider the many lying judges and mayors; officials on city and county councils and school boards; state and federal legislators and governors; appointed and elected federal officials and cabinet secretaries – even dictators of countries.

If they do not turn to God, they will likewise be destroyed by Him in the end because they are corrupt, pedophiles, Satanists… or just simply people who refuse to accept God's terms. 

The point I bring up here is that, in the midst of our prayers for God's kingdom to come, and His will to be done – it is vital that we pray for Sauls and Saulettes to be birthed into the Kingdom as God reveals His power to a world gone astray.

I'm convinced that many such souls will find their way into salvation, just as the evil, murderous official Saul once did.

Conversion is always a supernatural undertaking. My conversion came about as a quiet understanding in my heart that this was the way I needed to go. Even though God didn’t knock me off my horse and blind me, this still required an operation of the supernatural.

A conversion like Saul's, however, is spectacular.

As the reader may recall, Saul was busy about his occupation of capturing, imprisoning, and killing believers in The Way – the new "cult" of Christianity – because, as a Pharisee, he believed they were rebels against the tried-and-true Jewish faith.

But one fine day, God Himself literally stopped him in his tracks and turned his life around. Blinded by God’s glory and knocked off his high horse, he surrendered to Jesus, the only One he could listen to.

Saul, murderer of the Christians, was transformed into Paul, the greatest evangelist for Christendom of all time. You can read about his conversion in Acts Chapter 9.

Paul’s firsthand testimony in 1 Timothy 1:15 says, “This is a true saying and worthy of all acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

Long before Saul's time, the mightiest ruler in the known world, Nebuchadnezzar, received a lesson from God that ultimately turned him into a believer. Puffed up with pride and narcissism, believing that he and he alone was responsible for his great success, Neb (for short) didn't give God any credit for the achievements that God alone had granted him – even after warning him in a dream.

When Daniel is called in to interpret the dream, he pleads with him, “Therefore, O king, let my advice be acceptable to you: break off your sins by being righteous, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity.” God gives him a full year to repent.

“At the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon. The king spoke saying, ‘Is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?’ While the world was still in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from heaven: ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you!’” (Daniel 4:28-31).

God turned Neb into a human beast that grazed with the four-footed animals in the pastures. When Neb came to his senses after seven years, he acknowledged and praised the true and only God of Heaven who rules in the affairs of men (Daniel 4:34-37).

You may not be a mighty world leader or a person of great prominence. Maybe you are just a rank-and-file person, like me. But, whether a president or a dictator, a maid or a bus driver, a blue collar worker or a white collar professional, God loves each one of us equally.

Because of that, God takes each person on a journey to help them understand the love and care He has for every one of us, regardless of our station – in hopes that we choose to become a believer.

In hopes that we might recognize that He rules in the affairs of men.

Unfortunately, some will refuse to accept God's patient love and will become like Pharaoh, drowned in a sea of unbelief, or of just plain rebellion.

The Lord's plan is more than just about getting you on the road to Heaven and off the Highway to Hell.  But it is possible that those problems, addictions, frustrations, fears, and enemies you have to deal with in your life are part of that plan, too.

God's love is a supernatural love. He wants to help you with your earthly life, as well. He wants to turn His angels loose to guard and protect you. He will let every bad thing that happens to you be turned around to your good, “For all things work together for good to them who love the Lord; to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Would you like to experience that kind of blessing in your own life?

Get a good taste of God's supernatural love. Take this challenge in Psalm 34:8: "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him."