Peter was hungry but lunch wasn’t ready yet, so he went to the rooftop to pray. As he prayed he fell into a trance and saw a large sheet filled with animals, reptiles and birds descending from the sky. A voice tells him to kill and eat whatever is on the sheet (Acts 10:9-13).
Peter was appalled. As someone who adheres to Jewish dietary laws, the animals on the sheet were unclean. Regardless of hunger, he would never eat them no matter how deliciously it was prepared. Peter protests but the voice tells him not to ‘call something unclean if God has made it clean (Acts 10:15)’. The vision repeats three times (Acts 10:16).
Three in the Bible represents completion (BibleStudyTools.com ). Another way of looking at it would be: what God told Peter is the absolute truth, no exceptions, exemptions or clauses. If God has made it clean, no one can declare it anything else.
Peter is mulling over the meaning of the vision when three strangers enter his life. Don’t overlook the coincidence, Peter saw the vision three times, and three strangers arrived at the door asking for him. The men who made that unexpected house call were from the household of Cornelius, a Roman army officer, and a Gentile.
At this point in the fledgling church’s history, persecution had scattered the believers throughout Judea and Samaria, and with them went the gospel (Acts 8:1-4). But there was one group of people that no one was actively seeking to evangelize: the Gentiles. All that would change after Peter visits Cornelius. That meeting would be the impetus for spreading the gospel to all people, regardless of race or ethnicity.
First lesson
There are a couple of lessons we can learn from this passage. First, before God asked Peter to preach to the Gentiles, He prepared Peter for the task. What God was calling Peter to do wasn’t going to be easy. It would challenge long-held beliefs about the Messiah, among other things. It would question everything he knows and believes, that’s why God prepped him. He made sure Peter was ready.
It’s a great reminder that God always prepares us for the task He has for us. He never throws us into the water without teaching us to swim or providing a way to stay afloat.
God equips us
For parents of children with disabilities, that’s a little hard to embrace because I’m not sure how many of us felt ‘prepared’ to be a parent of a child with a disability. I certainly didn’t. But feeling unprepared doesn’t mean God didn’t equip us.
God has prepared us to meet our child’s challenges, either by the personalities He’s created us with, the gifts and talents we have, the resources we know, the community we have or by the knowledge we possess. In one way or another, He’s equipped us to parent our uniquely abled child, no matter how ill-qualified we may feel.
Second lesson
This brings me to my second point. When God tells Peter to kill and eat what is on the sheet, he says he can’t because it is ‘unclean or impure’ (Acts 10:14). But God tells Peter not to call something unclean if God has made it clean. If God deems something or someone worthy then no one can change that fact. Simply put, no one can undo what God has done. He is the final authority.
It’s a simple and straightforward message yet, why do we condemn ourselves when the Bible says that God has made us clean? If He says we are worthy, why do we call ourselves unworthy? Those negative attitudes about ourselves is calling what God has made clean, unclean. They should have no real estate in our thoughts. If God call us worthy then we are, no exceptions, exemptions or clauses.
What I’m learning
With God’s strength, we are fully equipped with everything we need to be the best parents to our children. Sure we will make mistakes occasionally but we are exactly what our child needs. Negative thoughts about ourselves are self-sabotage. When they occur we need to remind ourselves that God calls us worthy and we don’t have any right to call us anything less.