05-15-16 Pentecost in the Church

This week was Comic-Con, Pentecost Sunday, and definitive proof that your pastor is an idiot...

Okay, maybe not an idiot, but certainly someone who still struggles with the same sorts of “foolishness-when-you-look-at-it-with-20/20-hindsight” that the rest of us in humanity struggle with.

For Alex’s upcoming 16th birthday, we took him to a comic book convention in Des Moines on Saturday, so that he could immerse himself in geeky nerd fun (and it was awesomely geeky nerd fun).  And that evening, our car broke down, so that we couldn’t drive it back to Illinois.  Everything that we tried to do--and I do mean everything--got thwarted as we tried it.  We couldn’t get a hotel, no repair shop would be open until Monday (one nearby repair shop even turned out to be nonexistent... as did the rental car that we’d confirmed in order to get to come back in time for our Pentecost service).  By 11:00, we were getting pretty stressed out, though we kept praying and kept feeling like God wanted me back for Sunday morning.

And that’s why I’m an idiot. 

See, on Friday night, I’d just led a Bible study (looking at Abraham and Sarah and Isaac) about how we need to do a better job of trusting in God.  If we know what God has told us, then why should we worry about whether or not it’s going to happen?  God promised a son... and a decade later, the couple took matters into their own hands, since God hadn’t kept up His end of the bargain... only to find out that God’s timing was still another decade and a half in coming...

So here I was in Des Moines, knowing that God fully intended to get me back for Sunday morning, but getting stressed about trying to figure out how to make that happen.  Sure, it was a hassle.  Yes, everything fought with us at every stage (except our waitress, who energetically reminded us that God is totally faithful).  So Wendy had to stay overnight in Iowa with a friend who lived nearby, and the kids and I finally got a rental car and arrived home at 3:30 in the morning, and Wendy drove our repaired vehicle home on Sunday evening -- absolutely, it was all a pain in the neck...

So what? 

As I sang in worship on Sunday morning, I was reminded that God had gotten everyone where they needed to be, precisely when they needed to be there, safe and sound, just as He’d said that He would when we’d prayed about it.  What exactly had we been so stressed about?  No, I didn’t see how He was going to do it, and yes, everything was totally up in the air the whole time (and I hate that), but why did I need to know all of the details in advance?  I wasn’t in charge of getting us home--God was...

As we chatted in the Pentecost sermon, A.J. Gordon once wrote, “Have we forgotten that there is a Holy Ghost, that we must insist upon walking on crutches when we might fly?”  I was foolish in that I tried so hard to make sure that everyone could hobble that I forgot that we should soar...

So what perceptions about your own life situations do you think that you may need to reconsider today?

How can you remember to soar with God’s Spirit, instead of relying on hobbling on your own very limited abilities...?