7Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
8Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision.
Acts 12:7-9
As I read this passage this morning, I was struck by Peter’s quick obedience. Awoken from his sleep, Peter does exactly he’s told…without questioning why or who or how. I am challenged by this, are you? While He hasn’t sent angels and shining lights, God occasionally makes His will known to me in other ways. I’m sorry to report that typically at those times, I am more apt to ask why and how before I obey.
I tend to have a cautious and slow moving faith. I want to embrace all of God, but I want to avoid foolish adventures that appeal to my emotions or personality but are not of God. I am sure that sometimes I wrap my hesitancy to obey in the mature sounding desire to test all things and make sound judgments – instead of recognizing it for what it is – fear of the unknown, fear of change, complacency, comfortable with life as I know it or just plain laziness. I don’t what to be the person who embraces those things, but they creep into my life so easily. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I want to pursue God with all my heart instead of being lulled into complacency by the things of the world.
There are times to be cautious and move slowly and there are times for quick obedience. For those of us who tend to be stuck in the slow and cautious mode, I pray that Peter’s example will inspire us to quick obedience when God says “Quick, get up!”
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I think you have to be attentive eugonh to God to know how He speaks into your life. It is different for everyone. I think the way He speaks into our life can be validated by being consistent with the Word of God, however; there’s plenty of flexibility within that validation definition . The trick is being disciplined in our walk to consistently talk with Him and dig into the Word. He will then reveal Himself to us. Once we get a feel for it, there’s no reason for caution. The problem is, many of us don’t invest eugonh Face time with Christ to discern what His communication to us looks like in our individual lives.