“It is Hard for You to Kick Against the Goads”
By: Sarah Focht, Denville, New Jersey
Of all things upon which relationships are built, conversation is perhaps the most fundamental. Conversation is how one mind connects with another and the hidden depths of the spirit are revealed. To wrestle with and know the mind of God, to connect with Him, to persuade His heart and have our hearts persuaded by Him is the ultimate relationship. And relationship with God is life.
Is it possible for one to believe they have a relationship with God and live as an enemy to Him? Is it possible to be so ingrained and indoctrinated in one’s long-held system of beliefs that she is blind to the truth and living in unperceived error? Is it possible to commit atrocities and inhumane acts in the name of God and still live in good conscience before Him? And if so, could there be hope for such a person?
Those who know Saul of Tarsus and his villainous former life know the short answer to this question is “Yes, it is possible.” God speaks, and hearts are changed. The universe itself is “upheld by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). It is surprising, then, that of all the words, reasons, and powers of persuasion at His disposal, it is most often in the form of the simplest question that God chooses to converse with man. So it is with Saul. One question will change the course of his life and the lives of countless Kingdom citizens.
By the time we first meet Saul at the stoning of Stephen, Christ has already been slain and risen, and His heavenly kingdom has been established on earth in the church. Though the Kingdom has been fully realized in Christ, it has not been realized in the hearts of all who have encountered it. Luke specifically names Saul as an archenemy of the Kingdom in its early stages. His “righteous mission” is to stamp out all of Christ’s followers, and he appears to have every earthly advantage. He is born into the coveted citizenship of the most powerful earthly kingdom – Rome. He is the star student and up-and-coming leader of the most prominent sect of the Jews – “A Pharisee of Pharisees” (Phil. 3:5). He has direct access to and communication with the High Priest and, therefore, has every political resource at his disposal (Acts 9:1). There is ample documentation of his devastation: “Ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3). His very breath is described as “threats” and “murder” (Acts 9:1). And later, speaking of himself, he describes his “raging fury” and how he tried to force the followers of Christ to blaspheme (Acts 26:11). In all this, Saul believes he is justified and admits, “I was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 26:9).
Given the chance to speak to such a man - if one would dare even take that chance - what would you say? How would we write the conversation between Jesus and this villain of His people? A scathing rebuke seems justified. And what more climactic moment is there to stop the destroyer in his tracks than as he marches towards Damascus to extend his crusade even there? We know the story well. A heavenly light suddenly overtakes him, and Saul falls to his knees. The Lord finally has his full attention. Of all things He could have said to Saul in that moment, He simply says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 26:14). Though Jesus is the discerner of hearts and knows all things, He does not reveal Saul’s heart or motives to him but rather appeals to Saul to examine them for himself.
The statement the Lord makes directly after this initial question, though, is the most surprising of all. He says, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”
Hard? For Saul? The young man of privilege at the peak of his power? How so? Saul is the one persecuting Christ’s followers, so why not rather rebuke him for how hard he is making life for them? Or how hard it is for the heart of Jesus to see His righteous ones afflicted? Christ’s statement to Saul becomes even more puzzling when we pair it with Jesus’ statement to Ananias in Acts 9:16. There, Christ says of Saul, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
Piecing these two statements together, it sounds as though Christ is calling Saul to leave his present hardship and exchange it for a life of suffering instead. What’s the difference? It is hard to imagine a life more difficult than the one the apostle Paul is called to live. Is it possible, though, that all the suffering he will endure as a servant of Christ will actually be easier than his former life of resisting Christ?
Kicking against the goads implies the pain that comes from resisting the direction in which you are being led. When I was a kid, we had an incredibly strong, willful dog who would chase our horse and nip at its heels. My dad put a shock collar on her, and she would yelp at the zap, but not for a minute would she change courses or behavior. She chased the horse despite even being kicked in the head and injured by the more powerful animal. This is a physical example of a spiritual truth. We can stubbornly resist the Spirit’s leading to our own harm and destruction.
What are the “goads” Saul is kicking against? At least one of them seems to be the already written and revealed word of God that Saul knows so well. In his later defense to King Agrippa, Paul asks, “King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe” (Acts 26:27.) Paul calls on Agrippa to stop kicking against the “goad” which he himself had resisted so desperately all those years before. The Word of God reveals his Kingdom plan. To resist it is to resist our place in the Kingdom.
Another goad Saul is kicking against may be the living examples of the countless faithful souls he is persecuting. How could someone witness an execution such as Stephen’s and not feel the prick of a goad? Saul’s presence at his execution that day is a chance for him to behold the power of the Kingdom in the form of a human vessel. Are we not told later in scripture by Paul himself that such earthen vessels are a testament to the surpassing greatness of our King? (2 Cor. 4:7). The treasure that is exposed from Stephen’s fallen “jar of clay” that day is a witness to goad all who are present towards truth.
In Saul’s case, to kick against the goads means he is fighting against the truth that is right in front of him, and that implies blindness of heart. How interesting that Scripture makes a point to say of Paul after his conversation with Jesus in Acts 9:8, “Although his eyes were open, he could not see.” As a well-trained student of the law under Gamaliel, young Saul has every reason to see Jesus clearly for who He is as the promised Messiah. Is it possible his lofty education has actually conditioned him to kick against the goads?
It isn’t until Saul is struck with physical blindness that the eyes of his heart are enlightened. Perhaps Paul is even thinking of his own former blindness of heart as he shares his prayer of thankfulness with the Ephesian brethren saying that God has also opened their hearts to understand the hope and inheritance they have received through Christ’s resurrection (Eph. 1:15-20). Having kicked against the goads for so long, it cuts Paul’s heart to see others doing the same. His renewed life’s mission as commissioned by Christ on the road to Damascus is “I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:17-18). In other words, so that the Kingdom realized through Christ, and now Paul, may be realized throughout “all the world” as well.
Paul carries this mission to the fullest extent of his life – even to house arrest in Rome where he testifies to the kingdom of God and tries to convince the Jews about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets (Acts 28:23). Some believe; others continue to kick against the goads: “And disagreeing among themselves they depart after Paul makes this one statement: ‘The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet: Go to this people, and say, you will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive’” (Acts 28:25-26).I
In what ways are you and I “kicking against the goads” in our own lives? Is there a convicting truth in scripture we are resisting and not allowing to truly change us, perhaps? Are we refusing to fully surrender ourselves to Christ as living vessels in His Kingdom work? Do we need to pray more diligently that the eyes of our hearts will be opened to understand the will of our King? Are we, by our actions or inaction, preventing those in darkness from coming to knowledge of the light? Thanks be to God, the Kingdom has been established and realized through Him. What a shame if it is not, however, realized in us. What a shame if it is not realized in others because of us.
Our souls are created by the very breath of God’s spirit, and our designed purpose is to live in step with His Spirit (Gal. 5:25). To resist the Spirit is to resist the very core of who we are. Is this what Jesus means when He says it is “hard” for Saul to kick against the goads? Could it be that suffering in the flesh is nothing compared to the soul-wasting emptiness of rejecting the Spirit with whom we are intended to live in harmony? If the “mind of the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6), then to resist the Spirit is to resist those very things after which we are all searching so desperately… life and peace. Augustine spoke rightly when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Indeed, it is hard for us to kick against the goads.
Though Christ had said of Paul, “I will show him how much he must suffer,” He will continually reveal throughout Paul’s life that He is not just calling him to suffering but to glory. Thanks be to God, we who are believers are also invited into the conversation. The voice of Christ continues to speak through Paul to the brethren in Rome, and even to us, as He assures us that, “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).
Resisting the Spirit of Christ is so much harder than surrendering to the only One who can guarantee such a promise.