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Acts 9:32-43 Stop and read it. If you don’t have a Bible nearby, here’s a link: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%209%3A32-43&version=NLT
While Paul is in Tarsus, Peter is keeping busy. He is travelling from town to town encouraging the new believers, performing miracles and teaching. He is so changed from the hot headed fisherman who frequently gave Jesus his misguided opinions. All of that passion and drive finally have a godly focus. Peter wants everyone to understand that he is a servant of Jesus, acting on Jesus behalf and in his authority. Peter wants to see Jesus glorified and frankly does not care for the approval of anyone else.
As I said early on, the story of Acts is the story of how the good news about Jesus spread. In this passage it’s a brush fire. First in Lydda Peter meets Aeneas. Everyone in town had heard his tragic story. By this time, he had been paralyzed for eight years, beyond hope. So when Peter announced to him and anyone else nearby that Jesus had healed Aeneas, the evidence was unmistakable. No wonder the whole town believed!
Folks on the coast in Joppa hear that he is nearby and they ask him to come heal Dorcas. It’s such a precious and devastating picture – all these people she had loved so well and so practically, utterly crushed by her death. But Peter has seen Jesus raise the dead and he knows the drill. He clears the room and then he prays. In that time of prayer God must have said yes because he then takes her by the hand and tells her to get up. Dorcas’ death was clearly well known and many mourned her. So her healing shocked the town. People knew she had died. They were preparing for a very well-attended funeral. Suddenly she’s alive. It’s hard to account for something like that. So, once again, the message spreads. The Israelites had waited a very long time for their messiah. And now that he had come in fulfillment of their prophecies, his message was sweeping whole towns up in joyful belief!
I’ve noticed that, often, this is how God works. From my perspective, I am bringing the same situations and problems to God over and over for literal years. It truly feels like he has gone silent and absolutely nothing is happening. And then suddenly, his time arrives. All the puzzle pieces that I never noticed moving are in place and in what seems like a moment he has accomplished more than I ever thought to ask. Waiting on God to act can feel like a long trek through an arid land, but when he finally moves, he moves! Never doubt that he is hearing and responding to your prayers. Just understand that he has a billion moving parts to position and once they are where he wants them (which will inevitably happen) you won’t be able to keep up.
