May 3, 2011
When God Has to Shove Us
I was reading this morning about Peter praying on the roof of Simon the tanner’s home, his vision about not calling anything unclean that has been declared clean by God, and his subsequent visit to Cornelius, the Roman Centurion. That story always reminds me that Christianity could have remained a religion exclusively for Jews and Jewish converts.
The leader of the early church certainly didn’t think it was his job to preach to the Gentiles.
It took a firm shove by God to send him to them.
The mission to the Gentiles was one of the most significant developments in the early church, forever changing the fate of many. However, this wasn’t Peter’s idea. That was God’s idea.
This story reminds me of how important it is to pray and to remain open to the ways God wants to lead me. Chances are that I won’t be able to guess what God wants me to do next. I’m sure that dinner with a Roman Centurion wasn’t even on Peter’s list of top ten things he expected or wanted to do tomorrow.
God blindsides us sometimes.
We’ll never be able to predict it, but we can pray, listening to what the Spirit is saying. Sometimes we won’t hear anything, and that’s OK. But when we’re listening, we’ll be in a position to hear God and to either participate or resist.
I pray that we will be listening for God’s voice today, and that we’ll go where he sends us, even if it’s the last thing we expect.
The account of Peter opening the gospel door to the Gentiles holds endless fascination for me. Imagine: something as important as the good news jumping cultural and ethnic barriers, yet God spoke to Peter in a trance and a vision depicting things that Peter said he would never do. In fact, Peter understood God’s purpose only in retrospect. Why did God speak such an important word in such a veiled manner? Perhaps its all part of “God’s Shove.” How many other things does God say to us in unusual ways?