Acts 10:17-33
Be still: Lord, be with me here today, as I come to learn from your Word. Let my mind be still. Let my body be still. I am listening. Amen.
Read: Acts 10:17-33
He said to them: 'You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.’ (v28)
Encounter: I am someone who needs a plan. I want to know what I'm doing and why. Yet there are plenty of things in my life that seem to have neither and it drives me crazy!
In yesterday's passage, Peter was told by God that things shouldn’t be called ‘impure or unclean’ and Peter was utterly confused. There seemed to be no plan and no purpose to this instruction and it shook up his familiar rhythms.
And yet Peter could not have imagined what that vision would lead to. Just days later, he finds himself stepping into a Gentile's house, bringing comfort, healing, and the presence of God, in a place he would never before have entered. The plan was there all along. The purpose just hadn't been revealed.
Peter trusted God and followed him one step at a time, and it led to an amazing moment of unity. There are places in our own lives where we feel that same confusion — situations we long to see change, questions we're desperate to have answered. But we learn from this passage that we don't know what those situations are forming in us and where, through them, God is quietly leading us.
God requires us to open our hands and release the control we're clinging to. On the other side of that moment is a deep freedom, the freedom of knowing we’re held in a plan far greater than our own.
Apply: Think of the places or situations in your life you feel confused by or long to know the plan and purpose. Can you give up control to allow God to guide you in his perfect plan? What difference would it make if you were fully trusting in God’s plan?
Devote: God, thank you that you have a plan and a purpose for my life. I’m sorry for where I try to control the narrative — help me to trust you. I pray for the strength and peace to press on even when I don’t understand.