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Page 1 of The Zion News |
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The Month of May
May is my favorite month. The end of school, end of winter programming, the beginning of spring. It is all hopeful! However, we ran into several " false starts" this year with spring thinking it is coming and BOOM we get snow. But the robins have come, grass has begun to grow and life returns. May is also a fun time for the Carlson house. Tammy graduates with her nursing degree, Casey graduates from high school and it is my birthday in May. So for me waiting for May has always been exciting. When something comes that you have been waiting for it can be one of two things, disappointing or very exciting. People of faith where waiting for a long time to experience the joy of the Messiah, and he came. The disciples where locked up waiting for the Holy Spirit, and it came. We don’t have to wait any longer. Our Messiah has come to us, the Holy Spirit has come to us. On May 11th we will be celebrating the coming of the Spirit into our world. Get your red clothing out! This day we will celebrate the transforming fire of God’s Spirit moving us and shaping us and we do not have to slowly anticipate its coming. In my experience, the Holy Spirit has always been the least understood aspect of God. We do not know much about it at all. We used to call it the Holy Ghost and it spooked everyone. But a deep understanding of the Spirit’s work is very helpful to us in our day to day walk. It is in the Sprit that we are knit together will all creation. It is in the Spirit that our church is born. It is in the Spirit that we find the power to believe in God and go to him. In this same |
Spirit we are all intertwined and pulled together as one body of Christ. In short, without the Spirit we can do or be nothing. It is the Spirit of God that gives us life. People of Zion if that is true, then it is true that there is no place we can go, no mess too big and no problem too large that God’s Spirit cannot redeem. It is all in God. Now I will not go so far as to say that the Holy Sprit causes evil. But we take that power of the Spirit and we twist it and break it and warp it into our own self serving messes. And yet, warped as it may be; because if God’s Spirit is in it, it is salvageable, redeemable and saved by the power of the resurrection. In short, God’s Spirit is where you are in pain and joy, in steady days and chaos. The Holy Spirit is renewing the face of the earth as we speak! We do not have to wait for it any longer. It is now and working and it is by the power of the Spirit that I can tell you with full confidence that God is working out new possibilities in our lives as we speak. You don’t have to do anything to make the Spirit of God work. It is working today, now in you and around you, in your friends and in your enemies. God is at work. The trick is looking for it, noticing it. As simple as seeing the dew on a blade of grass to hearing the organ play. From holding hands with a friend to serving food at a Wednesday meal. That is the Spirit. My prayer for you is that wherever you are in your journey you can feel that same Sprit granting you life and giving you joy. Amen |
