Why Assignment sometimes trumps personality or gift-mix.

Note: This month I’m posting a series of devotional thoughts from Acts. Many of these are reposts, some are new. I’m “working out the kinks” for submission to a compilation of short, pastoral writings in Acts to be published later this year. If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please let me know!

In Acts 10, God asks Peter to do the unthinkable. He’s going to need to have fellowship with, and share Jesus’ message with some…Gentiles.

And the way it’s all revealed to Peter is through a divine invitation to dig into a big meal made entirely of…unclean food.

Peter had never done either of those things!

What Peter didn’t know was that the Lord was about to unfold his eternal plan (see Eph 2), to bring the Gentiles into family relationship with the Jews through the Gospel.

Better yet, God was going to use Peter as the spark that would get this whole fire burning.

Imagine if Peter had said “NO WAY! God doesn’t work like that. And even if He does, that really isn’t my calling; it doesn’t fit my gift-mix; it isn’t what I’m wired to do.”

Now, I do believe the Lord has a unique calling for each of us, and that He has hard-wired certain gifts and God-given-abilities into our personalities. For some reason ultra-Pharisee Paul would end up being the Apostle to the Gentiles just as rugged fisherman Peter would be the Apostle to the Jews (Gal 2:8). And for reasons God only knew, that fit them each perfectly.

But God also planned to use Peter as the one through whom the Gentiles would first receive the gospel. Though it may not have been his thing, I, as a post-modern Gentile, am very grateful that Peter was obedient and flexible to accept an assignment that seemed out of his depth.

It was only a single assignment, but what an assignment!

When we are intransigent (inflexible, stuck in our ways, unmoving) about what we will and won’t do for God, we will miss some awesome opportunities.

So, by all means, do find your SHAPE, know your DISC Profile, grip your Birkman, understand your personality type, comprehend your Gift-mix…

…and then, when it’s all said and done, submit yourself each day to whatever the Lord would do through you to touch your world; even when—maybe especially when—it doesn’t all make sense.