For years, I’ve told people that I’m best friends with Kristi Yamaguchi. Yup, the gold medalist in figure-skating in the 1992 Olympics. America’s sweetheart. That Kristi Yamaguchi. And I’m best friends with her.

Because 15 years ago she came to Hawaii to shoot a commercial for Aloha Shoyu, and our next-door neighbor was the director of the commercial. At the last minute he realized he needed a haole couple to be her friends in the commercial, so he came over and asked Cyndi and I if we could come shoot the next day. The token haole’s. Why not?

So we went, and all day long we pretended we were eating sushi with Kristi Yamaguchi. All day we pretended to talk with Kristi Yamaguchi and laugh with Kristi Yamaguchi. We were Kristi Yamaguchi’s best friends!

At least, that’s the way we imagined it. But here’s the reality: we did some work with Kristi Yamaguchi. We were around Kristi Yamaguchi. But we don’t actually know Kristi Yamaguchi.

And that’s exactly the kind of realization Paul was forced to come to about his relationship with God when he was surprised by Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Before that point, he thought he and God were best friends. He says in Galatians, “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:14). He expands on that in Philippians 3:

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh? (confidence in your own good works?) I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day (I was doing good things for God when I was still in a Baby Bjorn!) of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin (you can’t buy a better family than that!) Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee … (which means I memorized the law. You’re going, “Wow, Paul, which laws did you memorize?” The answer is all of ‘em! All five books! Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Have you even read Deuteronomy?) as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Philippians 3:4-6)

Blameless! Paul was sure God loved him, because there was no way God could blame him. For anything. He thought he was God’s best friend. But then, something crazy happened:

But he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me (Galatians 1:15-16).

In other words, I was doing all these things for God, but I didn’t really know God. He had to come and introduce himself to me. He had to reveal his son to me! We’d never met before. It was a little awkward. God said, “Hey, you know my son Jesus, right?” And I was like, “Uhhhhhhhh … you have a son?” I thought I was best friends with God. But it turned out I didn’t know him at all.

God had to introduce himself to Paul for the very first time. And all of a sudden, Paul’s life was completely spun around. Nothing was the same ever again. Everything he knew went out the window. Everything he valued went out the window.

And that’s how it works for everyone. For every Christian, there’s some point in your life where Jesus surprises you. It doesn’t matter what you were before that point. It doesn’t matter if you were a prostitute or a pastor’s kid – at some point, everything you thought you knew about God and about yourself gets turned upside down.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””God]God doesn’t judge you by your performance, he judges you by his grace.[/perfectpullquote]You come to realize that your endeavors are empty. You realize what Paul realized: that God doesn’t judge you by your performance, he judges you by his grace. Before Paul was re-introduced to God, he thought God would call him because of his good works. He thought God would see everything he was doing, and call him up one day and say, “Paul, that’s some quality work you’ve been doing there. Here, have a Tesla. No, really. You deserve it. And I’ve got like a million of ‘em.” But on the road to Damascus Paul came to understand that God doesn’t call us by our performance, God calls us by his grace.

And that kind of realization is what we need every day. Because every day we’re tempted to fall back on our performance.

Not sure about that? Try taking this 5-question quiz, and see how many of these performance traps you fall into:

1. I feel the need to advertise my accomplishments (That characterizes everybody on Facebook and Instagram, so that’s an automatic checkmark for almost all of us)
2. I look down on people who don’t perform at my level. (Saying things like, “Can you believe her kid isn’t walking yet? She must be feeding him formula.”)
3. I feel the need to minimize my failures (Like, “Yeah, I’m terrible at basketball, but that’s because basketball is lame!”)
4. I can’t stand criticism (“Oh, I’m always late? Well, you’re ugly. And I can get a watch.”)
5. I feel the need to judge people who do things differently (Like, “Who would ever buy an Android? Sending me messages in those little green bubbles? That’s gross!”)

If you answered yes to three or more of those questions, congratulations. You’re Paul. And you’re leading an exhausting life. You’re always feeling the need to prove yourself. And so you either don’t feel like you’ve proved yourself enough, or you look down on the people who haven’t proven themselves like you. That’s a tiring existence.

Jesus needs to re-introduce himself to you. Jesus needs to call you by his grace.