Kicking Against the Goads: A Devotional Thought

There's a line in Acts 26:14 that I've always sort of wondered about.

Paul's explaining to the King Agrippa how he met Jesus on the way to Damascus, and he adds something that wasn't there when Luke first described the event, back in Acts 9. In this telling of the story, after asking why Paul is persecuting him, Jesus says: "It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Like I say, I've never really understood what that line meant-- to kick against the goads-- so the other day I looked it up. And whoah, it makes you think.

Apparently it's a proverb that comes from the practice of plowing with oxen. Plows would have a "spur" or a "goad" on them to poke the ox and keep it moving in the direction the plowman wanted it to go. Once in a while the ox would get a notion in its head that it didn't like being goaded, so it would kick back against the goad, injuring itself. A rebellious ox kicks against the goad, and the resulting discomfort is meant to teach it to do as the plowman says.

Paul, on the way to Damascus, is most certainly in rebellion against God-- kicking against the goad of the Christian Message, (so to speak)-- and the blinding, humbling encounter he has with Jesus-- as painful as it is, will most definitely teach him to submit to the will of the Great Plowman (if you catch my drift).

It gets me thinking about the ways and the times in times in my life, when I've "kicked against the goads"; that is to say, when I've rebelled against God's will for my life and found myself in some spiritual (or literal) discomfort because of it. It really is hard on us, spiritually, when we push back against his good, loving, perfect will for us. Thank God for his patience, and even for his goading. May it teach us all deeper submission, and fuller rest, in his will.