Empire's End (20 page)

No one would be able to tell there had ever been anything there but desert sands.

THE TRADE ROUTE

T
HE INSTANT
I
REACHED
the Red Sea side of the trade route a dot appeared on the southern horizon to my right. It gradually grew into a slow-moving caravan from India, flanked front, side, and back by black-clad, saber-wielding horsemen who nodded pleasantly at me. The man astride the lead camel did the same and held up a hand, a gesture mirrored by several consecutively behind him until the entire convoy slowly ground to a halt. Dozens of dark-complexioned men and women dismounted, stretched, checked wheels and axles, drank from cisterns, chatted, and studied me with what appeared friendly curiosity.

I realized how bizarre this was. I had seen many a cavalcade in my time and never did one stop at other than a way station. Neither had I seen one interact with a foreign stranger on the route without regarding him with utter suspicion. The normal course would have called for a fore-guard of security horsemen to sprint ahead and ensure the stranger was
not a decoy or a distraction to allow renegades to attack the procession.

The guards would interrogate and intimidate the stranger, demanding to know his business, satisfying themselves that he was a legitimate local trader or that he was a trustworthy traveler who could pay his own way for transport. The natural questions they should have posed to me? What was I doing in the middle of nowhere with one small bag, and how was it that I showed no sign of wear from traveling? They had to assume I had just come from bathing in the sea, clothes and all.

But no advance party investigated me, and the rest acted as if they had been expecting me—no doubt because they had been. When God arranges one's passage, He takes care of everything. No one even searched my bag.

I quickly deduced that no one in the entire party spoke any of the languages I knew, yet when the man in charge approached and said something in his own tongue, I immediately knew it meant “Greetings.”

I responded in Greek, “Greetings to you, sir. Thank you.”

He gestured to the back of the second wagon, piled high with bolts of silk, and spoke again in his own language. God allowed me to intuit that he said, “We have food, wine, water, and a place for you to sleep. Our destination is Anatolia, but we will reach Damascus in forty days. You are welcome.”

I bowed and thanked him, and it struck me that my compartment also offered privacy, concealment, and safety in the face of any danger. Well, almost any danger. I didn't know what I would do if we faced a Roman checkpoint. But God had called me and assigned me and sent me. I would rest in Him. What else could I do?

While it was clear the Lord Himself had arranged all this for me, nothing dulled the burden of my heartache, which proved more wearying than I
ever could have anticipated. I found myself so wounded by grief at the loss of my dear friends that I worried whether I would find my fervor for the undertaking before me. I had joined the caravan before midday, yet as soon as I secured my satchel and settled behind the tiny partition allotted me, my extremities felt weighed down with a burden so great it was as if I didn't have the power to brush an insect from my face. I leaned against the rough wood of the jostling cart and allowed the squeaking, creaking rhythm of the passage to lull me to sleep.

As I dozed off I pledged I would not allow laziness to consume me, regardless how entitled I felt after a lifetime of industriousness. Though I had been dealt a blow I did not think I could endure, I determined not to allow it to defeat me. As soon as enough sleep restored me, I would begin a walking regimen—up to twenty-five miles day and night for as long as I could endure, until I was delivered to the great walled city from whence I had come. In just over a month's time I would reunite with my brothers and sisters in Damascus as fit as when I had left them and with the color of the sun on my skin.

I awoke when the column of horses, camels, donkeys, and cargo carts and wagons rattled into a way station at what I estimated was ten hours later. Despite feeling refreshed, anguish still hung over me like a cloud, and I suspected it would for a long time. I was ravenous and grateful to see someone had laid beside me a meal while I slept, which, while bland, at least revived me. It also allowed me to make good on my promise not to succumb to sloth on my way to Damascus. I began my walking as soon as the company had finished its business and set out again.

Keeping an eye on the distance markers, I began a log that showed I had walked fifteen miles that first night. And that exertion, along with my sorrow, allowed me to slumber the rest of the night, despite having slept so long earlier.

The next day I added a mile and continued thus until I was walking more than twenty miles a day and feeling better—at least physically.

Also, I was mistaken if I thought God had finished teaching me merely because I had left the wilderness. This rugged passage had a wilderness quality to it, and the Lord chose to speak to me often along the way.

Make known that the gospel you preach is not according to man, for you neither received it from man nor were you taught it, but I revealed it to you
.

When I send you back to where you persecuted My Father's church and tried to destroy it, even if many of My own distrust you and refuse to meet with you, I will grant you freedom to speak boldly in My name before you face fierce persecution. But for a fortnight and a day you will also find fellowship with the brethren, including My brother and also the one who denied Me
.

I was excited beyond words at the prospect of returning to Jerusalem but couldn't imagine being safe there. Yet if the Lord was telling me I would be there fifteen days, I would go with boldness. And to meet James and Peter! I was eager to tell them what had happened to me, but even more I wanted to hear every detail they could remember about their time with Jesus.

It will be many years before I will again send you to Jerusalem, but then I will send you brothers to help and encourage you in the work
.

I had not expected that, fearing that sacrificing Taryn relegated me to a lonely ministry for the rest of my life. I was willing to carry out my assignment as the Lord willed, but how heartening to know of this prospect!

When the caravan was about ten days outside Damascus I found myself more eager than ever to get there. I did not know what the Lord had in store for me, but I longed to reunite with Ananias, Judas, and the others. God had not indicated how long I was to be there before He sent me to
Jerusalem, but He had indicated that Gentiles were in Damascus, so I could only assume my ministry would begin there in some form.

On the road late one evening I was praying for Taryn and Corydon, pleading that the Lord give them peace, somehow impress upon them that I loved them, cared about them, and would exhaust every effort to find them. Had General Balbus forced Taryn to marry him? Did she worry I could not forgive that? How could I withhold such forgiveness when she had forgiven so great an offense from me? I was just grateful their lives had been spared.

The Lord was strangely silent with me on this. I knew He had protected them, and I also knew His priority for me. I could not abandon my calling to search for them, but when and where I was able, I wanted to learn as much as I could about their abductor and also try to somehow get word to Taryn that she was not alone in this world.

The Lord made it clear to me where He wanted my focus.

You have been crucified with Me. You no longer live, but I live in you, and the life you now live in the flesh you live by faith in Me. I loved you and gave Myself for you
.

Yes. Yes. Thank you, Lord
.

The caravan leader hurried back to me that evening as I walked, and he spoke to me in his own tongue, and again God gave me understanding. The man said his scouts had determined that a contingent of Roman cavalrymen had encamped near the next way station, which the caravan was due to reach at dawn. How he even knew I needed to be warned, I do not know.

“Should I hide under the cargo?” I said.

He shrugged.

I walked till I was exhausted, then stretched out atop the bales of silk. When we finally rolled up to the way station at dawn, I was nearly
dozing, yet God had still provided no leading about what I was to do. The enormous caravan was delayed more than an hour as the officious guards questioned every person in the vast party, searching them and picking through the carefully stacked and packed cargo.

The slaves appeared to try to mask their frustration at having to reassemble the mess the Romans made.

Lord, what would You have me say? How will I answer? Do I tell the truth about who I am and where I'm from, where I've been, where I'm going? Unless You tell me otherwise, I have no other plan
.

Three Romans reached the great wagon upon which I sat and set about questioning the six slaves assigned to it. Each was asked to show his
professio
, consisting of two small, hinged wooden diptychs bearing his inscribed identification, proving he had been approved by the Empire to traverse this route in an official service capacity. The men had these secured around their necks and carefully guarded. I'd had nothing of the sort since I had fled Damascus. I was curious what the consequences would be when my interlocutor discovered this lack.

But when they finished with the slaves, the guards turned to the cargo—in the case of this wagon the stacks of bolts of silks, upon many of which I sat. The Romans seemed to look through me as if I weren't there. I didn't move. How was this possible? Even the slaves looked wide-eyed. One nudged another and pointed.

The guards spent another ten minutes rummaging through the silk, and when they finished and moved on, I helped the slaves restack it, causing them to shake their heads and laugh. This had not been the first miracle I had witnessed, and I couldn't imagine it would be my last. But it was certainly the strangest.

I found it most interesting that the caravan had no business in Damascus. It had stopped at a way station about six miles south of the city, and as it
rolled near the first gate in the middle of the morning, it merely slowed to a stop. No one dismounted. I just grabbed my bag, waved to the leader and to the security horsemen, who barely acknowledged me, and they began their trek again. They had simply been used of God and were now on their way.

Crowds bustled in and out of the city. I hesitated as I approached the gate. Would I be searched, asked for identification or what my business was, whom I was coming to see? Would I be recognized, turned away, arrested?

As I stood there, God Himself filled me with His presence. I felt imbued from on high with a boldness from His throne, and never again would I go anywhere with even an ounce of timidity, let alone fear.

I send you out as a sheep in the midst of wolves. Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you
.

God reminded me to hearken to the Scripture I had memorized from my childhood, and it came rushing back to me as if I had read it that very day.
For the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

I straightened my satchel and strode through the gate, and while guards stood with feet spread and hands on their hips questioning everyone else who entered the city, I walked past, again as if invisible, and headed toward the street called Straight.

DAMASCUS

I
CONFESS THAT THE
earliest days of my mission were ones of confusion, for I made the mistake many before and after me have made. I tried to understand the unfathomable mind of God. I had long worshiped the intellect, believing things were to be thought through and reasoned out. I enjoyed a conundrum, a puzzle. Eventually, careful study should render any matter logical.

But God refused to allow Himself to be understood.

He would speak to me, instruct me, teach me, train me. He would give me all I needed. He prepared my way before me, as He had by getting me from Damascus to Arabia on Theo's bare back, and from Arabia to Damascus by merely impressing upon traders from India that they were to extend hospitality to a stranger.

Why, then, would He not merely visit the apostles in Jerusalem and tell them of the change in me? He had informed me, weeks before I was to
leave Damascus to finally meet them, that they would fear me and most would refuse even to associate with me. He could remedy that. God had proved He could do anything. I did not understand Him.

When I dared ask, He would remind me He had been teaching me about Himself since long before I believed in Him. He would bring to my mind passages from the prophets I had learned as a child, before I could fully comprehend their meaning.

There is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior. Look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself. The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness and shall not return, that to Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath
.

As I strode toward Judas' home, knowing the Lord Himself would have told Ananias to be there as surely as He told him to restore my sight three years before, all I could do was exult,
Oh, the depth of the riches both of Your wisdom and knowledge, my God! How unsearchable are Your judgments and Your ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of my Lord? Who has become Your counselor?