Acts chapter 10 tells of two stories that collide to create one directive from the Lord. The chapter begins with a Gentile man named Cornelius seeing a vision of an angel who tells him to send to Joppa for Peter who will come and tell him what he needs to hear. The story then jumps to Peter in Joppa on the following afternoon. This is the famous sheet of unclean animals story. God reveals to Peter in a vision that what God makes clean is clean, not what tradition specifies as such. Enter Cornelius’s messengers.

So Peter is told that what to him had been ultimate and eternal reality was actually tradition that, in Christ, was being clarified, seen in the fullness of its intention. Tradition that in Christ was upended. The very next minute God asks him to go into the house of a Gentile man. The message of the vision wasn’t meant to end with food in the body. God was preparing Peter to see, understand and embrace that what He said was law–not what Peter had been taught, told, or led to understand in his religious tradition.

The stories then merge and Peter enters the home of the Gentile Cornelius and immediately upon hearing the Word, the whole house full of willing spirits received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Peter returned to Jerusalem in Acts 11 where he caught a ton of flack for entering the home of a Gentile. Peter explained to them: God told me that what He says is clean is clean, what He says is worthy is worthy, what He says is useful is useful, what He says is a housing through whom He can work and move is an appropriate vessel. Because He says so.

After explaining how it all went down Peter ends by saying, “So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

Having heard Peter’s story, they didn’t just reason and begrudgingly vote to allow it or turn a blind eye to it, they praised God for having bigger plans than they had understanding.

The questions that may need to be posed and humbly considered in the coming days are these: Is God challenging religious tradition, attempting to upend errant inclinations that, in Christ, are proving to ‘stand in God’s way’? Is there the seal or evidence of His Presence and ‘way’ being exhibited outside the purview of those traditions He’s challenging?

(I do realize that the use of “traditions” will seem a faulty representation to some. After my own humble consideration of the Word on the issues at hand, I see there may be the need for a preliminary question that must first be addressed: is it tradition or is it biblically valid, clear and unassailable truth? I would simply ask anyone with opposition to my choice of wording to begin with this precursor question. Might my beliefs on these issues, in fact, be more shaped by tradition than biblical reality?)

One more question: If God is giving the same gifts to one subset of humanity as He is to another, who would we presume to be that we would stand in God’s way and disallow their use?

I really don’t want to step into a hot debate about who should do what under what title and within the interpreted definition of “function.” I cannot emphasize enough: I do not want to and am not offering myself up to. And so I believe God isn’t here asking me to do that at all. He is, most assuredly, asking me to do something, but what that is isn’t debate or fight or argue or coerce. God doesn’t generally like people who’s words are their weapons of choice. He tends to be a God attuned to action.

So rather than theologically debate or exegetically defend, I will only attempt to reveal. What made the way clear for Peter and the council in Jerusalem was evidence. Was God the One calling, using, sanctifying, saving, gifting, equipping, ushering into HIS BODY those others who had not previously been deemed the right people for that distinction? It was the fact that the Holy Spirit showed up that signified God was in the movement. So, as a female Bible teacher, is there evidence of God being in the room when I expound on God’s Word?

I was in Kenya. We were doing a women’s conference. I was the leader of our team that included males and females. Upon arrival, the eldest male in our group was invited into the pastors office to chat and eat breakfast. The pastor never actually spoke to or acknowledged me. Before beginning I asked him if he would be willing to be my translator so that the female translator who had worked the other elements of the morning could sit and simply partake of the lesson time. He agreed. And I literally felt the Spirit seize and surprise him beside me. He thought he was just acquiescing as a generous gift so someone else could enjoy some teaching. He had no idea from that first sentence that he was about to feel the consuming Presence of the Holy Spirit in that place. It was one of the most powerful and overwhelming encounters with the Holy Spirit I have ever had the privilege of being a part of. He was humble. He was passionate. He was kind and he, like Peter, seemed to have the understanding that what God was doing–not just in the women of his congregation, but in him–was of the Lord’s design and who was he to say God shouldn’t do that.

I had an adult male in my Sunday Bible class a year or so ago. He was in class regularly for a number of months before moving for his job. I didn’t know about his move and reached out to tell him we’d missed him in class. He responded. He was so gracious and kind, and on fire for the Lord. He told me that hadn’t been customary for him and his greatest aim in his new home city was to find a church home and someone to teach him the Word like I had. Under my teaching he had discovered passion for Scripture and a love for the Lord that was far more real than he’d ever known it could or should be.

It’s not just me. I have an older female friend who a handful of years ago heard the voice of the Lord more clearly than she ever had in her long and faithful life. He told her of a ministry He intended to see come to fruition. She immediately and actively set out to discover what man God intended to have bring the ministry into existence. After much prayer, many refusals and endless frustrating confusion, her prayer partner asked her whether or not God might have given the idea to her because she was the one He wanted to do it. She was challenged to her core but the notion that God might call a woman to such a high and noble thing as to lead a ministry of His design. I recently emcee’d the group’s anniversary gathering and I sat in awe of the Lord and the work He was doing, the passions He was igniting through the work of this sweet ministry. And while my friend made it clear she wanted no recognition that night, man after man after woman and man told their stories and then turned to her and said thank you for being the leader and vessel through whom this ministry was born and sustained.

I could go on. If God is putting the Seal of His Spirit approval on something, who would I have to be to stand in God’s way?

I have a Boss. He makes the rules.

I used to tell my kids when they got into trouble that even though they had not done the job God gave them to do of obeying their mom, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do the job God gave me to do of showing them the need to. God tells me what my job is. God equips, calls, empowers and directs me in the auspices of my job. Whether any other does or doesn’t do their job, I will, in obedience to the Boss who governs me, do mine.

I discovered some years ago that my innermost motivation for doing much of what I invest my life in is not just what the surface level would suggest. Missions? I love evangelism and the Church and culture and travel and that instant bond between brothers and sisters in Christ. But. Teaching? I love diving into the Word and spending my days at the Teacher’s feet and feeling the flaming of that indwelling Spirit surging with passion and willingness to move any marionette willing to hand over the strings. But. Mentoring? I love the deep swim in their lives, motivations, and impediments that have too long hindered them from a full awareness of what and who they were made to be. But.

The thrill that ignites so much of what I come back to again and again? Watching the light in someone’s eyes spark with an awareness that God is bigger than they ever realized before. That mind blown, box shattered, head exploding, imagination expanding, heart enlarging, socks blown half across the globe, world altering moment when the fetters fall and God escapes the genie bottle of our limited and limiting faith. Ahh, nothing better than to watch that explosion happen and the shackles that held true faith captive come crashing into a whole new belief system.

That moment when a woman with little knowledge of the world outside of her limited purview comes face to face with the reality that the God she often doubts lives outside her local church walls (maybe not even as far out as even the parking lot) is the same God showing up in a tent church with a beach ball hung like a chandelier in the center to a poverty stricken people who have no indoor plumbing. And He seems to be showing up to them a bit more powerfully than He ever has to her.

That instant when the guy gets smacked in the face with an awareness that God really is able to deliver the undeliverable. That money comes from nowhere he’s ever known existed. That word was spoken so aptly by someone he will never see again. That message reaches his ears from the lips of a preacher on the other side of the world or a walmart shopper he doesn’t know but who lives in the same town. Or maybe he just hears an imperceptible whisper he knows didn’t come from his own mind. God has been listening? God went to the trouble? God knows? God delivers? God is able?

The silent sound of sobbing from the corner as a woman so far lost and hopeless realizes the God she’s been running from loved her enough to bring a new friend from the other side of the world to make sure she knew she was still loved, wanted, known, and valuable.

Yep. And the socks blow off.

I’ve had the amazing privilege of seeing that look many times. There’s a shock then a sort of brokenness and then a sheer surrender and delight. There are often tears and just when you think your heart will break open the laughter starts to roll inside your very soul. Like Manoah. Samson’s dad thought surely no one could see God and live to tell of the day–that fearsome brokenness when you know that you know He’s been there all along. Followed by the realization that though He’s been watching it all, He’s still there loving on you. That’s the smile, the laugh, the impossibility of it all. And then the excitement. If He is there, if He can do this, if He’s all the way over here, if He …. Then He may be bigger than I realized.

And I may too.

Too few know this look. Too few have had it. We don’t go to the uncomfortable unknown. We don’t talk to the stranger. We don’t commit to the unachievable. We don’t dream. We don’t attempt those things which we couldn’t alone complete if and when He fails on the follow-through. We don’t let Him out of the box. We keep our tidy God in His little church sized box and–for our own selfish, sinful sakes–hem Him in to that which is known, safe, controlled, and familiar. Socks? Firmly on.

He will blow you away with His abilities and delights, blessings and provisions, appearings and sweetness. Day after day the gifts sit under the tree of true union. Day after day He waits for the child in us all to run, fall to our knees, and expectantly reach for gifts–lives!–that will leave us coming back for more, blown away by the wonder of being the King’s kids.