Acts 10:1–16
Be still: Lord, slow my thoughts down, where I want to rush into this; calm my mind and bring me gently into your presence. Guide me in this time of reading your Word. Amen.
Read: Acts 10:1–16
'Surely not, Lord! Peter replied. 'I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.' The voice spoke to him a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' (v14-15)
Encounter: Growing up, I’d watch my mum every morning, making her coffee, sitting at the kitchen table, meeting with the Lord. It quickly became my pattern too. It felt familiar and the Lord spoke to me there. But soon I became attached to the rhythm rather than the relationship. I grew precious about it and frustrated when it didn’t happen. God became less the centre, and the act became the goal.
Then God began prompting me to meet him in new ways through ordinary moments. A film, conversations, sunlight. I was resistant, yet, I realised, God was more than routines. He was everywhere. And my trust in him, not in my habits, is what grounds me.
It can be easy to take comfort in the habits we form — the morning cup of coffee, the route we walk to work, the ways we pray. But if we're not careful, that comfort can start to shape the way we expect God to move. We can find ourselves trusting in the ways God has spoken to us rather than in God himself.
Peter, in this passage, knows that same pull of familiarity and resistance to change. And we see God challenging him, calling him to raise his head from his habits and put his trust in him, even if that means his way of life has to shift.
What a gift that no matter what changes we can remain secure. We’re not shaken by shifting sand but held firm on the Rock and our hope is not in the rhythms and patterns we practise, but in the everlasting God.
Apply: Ask God to help identify patterns that you may have started to put your trust in instead of him? Where might you be following a habit out of familiarity rather than where God has called you?
Devote: God thank you that you are the ultimate source of comfort and security and we do not need to be shaken by the shifting sands of this world. Help me to listen to you and put my trust in you instead of my familiar patterns.