A New Understanding

I must confess to seeing a lot of things differently than I did back in the beginning of this spiritual journey.  Actually, I do not have to go that far back to see how new ways of seeing things have unfolded before me and within me.  Maybe some of the change has to do with the different seasons of our living.  As I reflect back on just these nine years of retirement, it sometimes seems that I hardly recognize myself.  So many things which I have never considered are being seen and experienced so differently.  Surprised and amazed is how I sometimes experience it.

 

I wonder if it might have been something like that for Peter when he went to Caesarea to become a guest of Cornelius, the Centurion of the Italian Cohort.  In earlier days he had never been uncomfortable being in the home of Gentiles because going was something he would not have done.  But, here at this moment in his life, he goes along with the messengers sent from Cornelius knowing full well that he is heading into a moment he would not have considered possible only a few years earlier in his life.  (Acts 10:28)  What he declares at the beginning of his message sums up the way his life and heart was changing. "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nations anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to Him."  (Acts 10:34)

 

Those of us who see ourselves exactly as we were when we started walking with Jesus, or who are holding on to past understandings as if they are poured in concrete may actually be walking out of step with the Christ who is leading us.  One thing He is always doing is moving us out of our comfort zones where we see ourselves as being in control, or having it all figured out to a place where going forward is going to require a new level of faith.  Even as life is unfolding daily around us so it our understanding of what it means to walk with Christ.  If such does not seem to be reality for us, perhaps, we need to look more closely at whose lead we are following.