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Where can you recognize God’s seeking grace in your story?
When we look back over our lives, we can often identify people, conversations, questions, and unexpected moments that helped point us toward God. At the time, we may not have recognized them as anything more than coincidence. Later, however, we begin to see them as landmarks of grace—evidence that God was seeking us before we knew how to seek him.
In this episode of Rediscovering Faith, Pastor Evan Ryder explores the story of Cornelius in Acts 10 and the ways God’s prevenient grace was already working before the apostle Peter ever arrived.
Acts 10 describes Cornelius as a Roman centurion who was devout and God-fearing. He prayed regularly, gave generously to people in need, and influenced the spiritual life of his household. Cornelius did not yet understand the gospel completely, but something was already awakening within him.
He was reaching toward a God he did not yet fully understand because God’s grace was already reaching toward him.
In the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, we call this prevenient grace, or seeking grace. It is the grace of God that goes before salvation—awakening us, drawing us, and enabling us to respond to God’s invitation. Before we understand who Jesus is, grace is already shining light into our darkness. Before we know the way home, God is already placing signs along the road.
Jeremiah 31:3 expresses this beautifully:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
God’s grace may appear through a parent or grandparent who prayed for us. It may come through a friend who invited us to church, a sermon we could not forget, a song that spoke to our pain, or an unexpected act of kindness during a lonely season. It may be present in the questions that stir our spiritual curiosity or in the conviction that helps us recognize that our current road is not leading toward life.
Even painful experiences can become landmarks of grace.
A failure may expose the limits of our own strength. A broken relationship may uncover something within us that needs healing. A persistent emptiness may reveal that success, possessions, pleasure, and approval cannot satisfy the deepest needs of the human heart.
Conviction is not God declaring that we are beyond hope. It is God graciously showing us that we are traveling the wrong road while inviting us to turn around.
Cornelius’s story reminds us that Peter did not bring an absent God into Cornelius’s life. By the time Peter heard Cornelius’s name, God was already present and working. Grace had been active in Cornelius’s prayers, generosity, relationships, and spiritual hunger.
Peter was not sent to manufacture a spiritual moment. He was invited to participate in something God had already begun.
This truth changes how followers of Jesus understand evangelism and discipleship. We do not carry Jesus into places where he is completely absent. We follow Jesus into the lives of people whom he is already loving, seeking, awakening, and drawing toward himself.
Our responsibility is to listen carefully, remain present, and faithfully participate in the work of grace.
In this Christian devotional episode, we explore:
• What prevenient grace means in Wesleyan theology
• How Acts 10 reveals God’s work in Cornelius before conversion
• Why prayer, generosity, and spiritual curiosity can be signs of seeking grace
• How God uses people, truth, kindness, conviction, and difficult experiences to draw us
• Why Peter was joining a work that God had already begun
• How recognizing grace changes the way Christians approach evangelism
• How to identify landmarks of God’s grace in your own spiritual journey
As you listen, consider these questions:
Who has God used to demonstrate his love to you?
What truths have remained with you through the years?
What experiences caused you to begin asking deeper questions about God, purpose, or the direction of your life?
When did you first sense that you were created for something more?
Where can you now recognize that God was working, even though you did not understand it at the time?
You may have believed that your story with God began when you prayed a prayer, entered a church, opened a Bible, or decided to follow Jesus. Those moments matter deeply—but grace was likely present long before you recognized it.
The people, questions, conversations, acts of kindness, moments of conviction, and unexpected experiences scattered throughout your story may be landmarks revealing that God was drawing you home.
You may have thought you were taking your first step toward God. Looking back, you may discover that God had already taken countless steps toward you.
This episode is part of “The Journey,” a Rediscovering Faith series about following Jesus on the journey of grace. Whether you are exploring Christianity, returning to faith, or learning to recognize God’s activity in the people around you, you are invited to discover the God who loves us with an everlasting love and draws us with unfailing kindness.
If this episode encourages you, share it with someone who needs to know that God may already be working in their story. Follow Rediscovering Faith for biblical teaching, Christian encouragement, Wesleyan-Holiness theology, and practical guidance for following Jesus.
