Our Scripture for today is Acts 2:37-38
37: When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38: Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
I usually see a Bible verse and ask, “What is God saying?” Peter’s answer to “What shall we do?” is “Repent and be baptized.”
But what if it was something else? What if it were, “Jump from Virginia to Pennsylvania all the way across Maryland and make sure you don’t touch Maryland at all? I know that is silly, but humor me. Where would you go to make the jump?
Well, there is a little strip of Maryland near the northeast part of Virginia where it is only a few miles to Pennsylvania. Those who knew geography would give that answer. “Go there. It is only a few miles rather than hundreds of miles like the other places.”
I had them. “Why?” I would ask. “You can’t jump a few miles. But the beautiful thing is that it is not your jump. It is God’s jump. If He asked you to make that jump, he would have to do it for us.” It recently hit me that it would be the right answer to go to the skinny place to jump. Even though it is God’s jump, He still wants you to do the best you can.
I’m still going to tell the story, but I will no longer end by pointing out that you can’t do it anyway, so just jump wherever you happen to be. Instead, I will accept that under your own power, you might fail, but still make the effort to do the best you can.
It is what we do with what God tells us.
Lonnie Davis