There’s a moment most believers can point to where something happened — a phone call that came out of nowhere, a door that closed hard, a conversation you didn’t plan — and only later did you look back and think, that was God. The question worth sitting with is this: what if you could start recognizing those moments while they’re still happening, not just in the rearview mirror?
That’s the heart of what Acts chapter 10 has been quietly teaching for two thousand years. And it connects to something Jesus said. In John 5:17, he pushes back against the religious leaders who were upset that he healed someone on the Sabbath. His response is direct: “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.” It’s not a theological footnote. It’s a declaration. God is never off the clock.
That truth carries even more weight when you trace it forward. Jesus goes to the Father, sends the Holy Spirit, and in John 14 makes clear that the Spirit will be in you and with you — guiding, leading, teaching. So we have the Father working, the Son working, and the Holy Spirit working, all at once, all the time. The whole Godhead is actively orchestrating things in our lives so that as many as will listen and obey will be saved and will further the kingdom of God here on earth. That’s not a passive offer. It’s an ongoing movement, and we’re invited into it.
The Kind of Person God Tends to Show Up For
Cornelius isn’t the most famous name in the New Testament, but his story is worth paying close attention to. Acts 10:2 describes him as “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household,” someone who gave generously and “prayed to God continually.” He wasn’t a Jew. He wasn’t a disciple. But he was consistent — praying, seeking, paying attention — and God showed up.
An angel appeared to him and gave him a very specific set of instructions: send for a man named Simon Peter, who’s staying at a tanner’s house in Joppa. That’s it. No explanation for why, no preview of what was coming. Just a clear directive and a name. What Cornelius did next is the part that matters. He didn’t debate it. He didn’t wait a few days to see if the vision would repeat itself. He immediately called his attendants together, explained the situation, and sent them on their way.
Joppa was a two-day walk from Caesarea. He was sending people on a four-day round trip without knowing what they’d bring back. That’s what following God looks like when the stakes feel real. It doesn’t always come with a fully explained plan. It comes with a word, a nudge, a moment of clarity — and then a decision about whether you’ll move.
God Was Already Working Before Anyone Knew It
While Cornelius’s attendants were making the trek south to Joppa, something else entirely was happening on a rooftop. Peter was up there praying, and he fell into a trance. A sheet came down from the sky filled with animals that Jewish law considered unclean, and a voice told him to eat. He refused. The voice came back: “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” This happened three times.
Peter had no idea Cornelius existed. Cornelius didn’t know what Peter was going through. But God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were working on both ends of the same story at the same time. That’s worth sitting with for a moment.
The timing of what happens next is one of those details that makes the story hard to dismiss as coincidence. Peter is still on the roof, still perplexed about the vision, still turning it over in his mind — and there’s a knock at the gate. Cornelius’s men have arrived. While Peter is reflecting, the Spirit speaks directly to him: “Behold, three men are looking for you. Get up, go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them myself.”
God is not just directing Cornelius. God is not just speaking to Peter. God is orchestrating the whole thing — the timing, the vision, the journey, the knock at the door. That was God. None of it was accidental.
Nobody Had All the Pieces, and That Was the Point
Here’s what tends to get overlooked in this story: neither Peter nor Cornelius understood what was fully happening until it was already unfolding in front of them. They were each given just enough to take the next step.
Peter walks into Cornelius’s house and finds a room full of people Cornelius had gathered — relatives, close friends, people he’d called together in anticipation of something he couldn’t fully describe. And Peter is honest with them: “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him. And yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean. That is why I came without even raising any objection when I was sent for. So I ask, for what reason have you sent for me?”
He still doesn’t have the full picture. Cornelius shares his side of the story. Peter starts talking about Jesus — not from some freshly prepared sermon, but from what he knows, what he’s experienced, what he’s been sharing everywhere he goes. He begins to preach, and then something happens that no one in that room expected: the Holy Spirit falls on everyone listening. The Jewish believers who had come with Peter from Joppa were astonished. The gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on Gentiles.
Peter’s response says everything: “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did.” And he ordered them to be baptized. That was God. Not a plan that Peter had carefully constructed. Not an outcome Cornelius had mapped out. God was working through two people who were simply being obedient to the pieces they’d been given, one step at a time.
What You Might Be Fighting Without Realizing It
There’s a moment in Acts 5 where a Pharisee named Gamaliel gives the Sanhedrin some of the most underrated advice in the New Testament. When the religious leaders were pushing to shut down Peter and John, Gamaliel stood up and essentially said — be careful. If this movement is from God, you won’t be able to stop it. You might just find yourselves fighting against God.
That warning is worth carrying into everyday life. There are situations that feel wrong, uncomfortable, or completely outside the plan — and the temptation is to dig in and resist. But sometimes what looks like an obstacle is actually a setup. The four days between Cornelius’s vision and Peter’s arrival weren’t dead time. Cornelius used those days to gather his family and friends, to prepare, to create the very audience that Peter would end up preaching to. God was working on the back end of a story neither of them could see fully from where they stood.
This doesn’t mean everything hard is divinely orchestrated or that every closed door is God redirecting you. But it does mean that a prayerful, attentive posture matters. The Gamaliel principle is really a call to humility: don’t be so quick to write something off as “not God” just because it’s uncomfortable or doesn’t fit the expected shape of how God works.
Learning to See It While It’s Happening
The invitation in all of this is to shift from a “that was God” faith — one that only recognizes God’s work in hindsight — to something more present. The God who worked in Cornelius’s life is the same God who works in yours. The Holy Spirit who showed up in that room in Caesarea is the same Spirit who is in you and with you right now, guiding and leading according to John 14.
What requires cultivation is attentiveness. Cornelius prayed continually. Peter went up to the roof to pray before any of this unfolded. Neither of them was passively waiting for something to happen — they were actively positioned to hear. That habit of regularly bringing your life before God, of reflecting, of asking what are you doing here? — that’s what tunes you in to what the Spirit is already saying.
The uncomfortable situation at work, the relationship that suddenly opened up, the opportunity that seemed to come out of nowhere, the door that closed in a way that still doesn’t make sense — God may be working in more of those moments than is obvious at first glance. The call is to hold them prayerfully rather than dismiss them quickly. To listen and obey the pieces you’re given, even when the full picture isn’t visible yet.
What About You?
Cornelius didn’t know he was about to witness one of the most significant moments in the early church — the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Gentiles for the first time. The men from Joppa who traveled with Peter didn’t know they would later become witnesses on Paul’s behalf. Peter didn’t know he was preaching the first Gentile Pentecost. They were just being faithful to the next step in front of them.
That’s the shape of following God most of the time. Not dramatic clarity. Not full revelation. Just enough light for the next step, and the faithfulness to take it.
So the question worth sitting with this week isn’t just “where was God?” — it’s “where is God working right now, and am I paying attention?” The Father is working. Jesus is working. The Holy Spirit is working. And as many as will listen and obey will be part of something far bigger than what any one of them could see from where they stood.
That’s not a small thing. That’s the kingdom of God moving in your actual, ordinary life.
Peace,
Todd