An Inkling
It’s one of our well-worn clichés: a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s true not just in the news business. It’s also true in our life with God.
Jesus knew this. It’s not that he whipped out pictures from his wallet to show us the Father or the scenes of heaven. Actually he relied on words – a thousand of them plus! But you know his words – he spoke in pictures: wide ways and narrow gates, a house built on sand, yeast in dough, and a shepherd who lays down his life for sheep. It’s well to define words, categorize types, organize concepts, and so on. We have to find ways to speak intelligibly about our beliefs and our experiences with God.
But we inevitably do what Jesus did: for every spoken concept, we attach several verbal pictures to illustrate. That seems especially helpful when we talk about the Holy Spirit. How do you describe the Spirit? Jesus himself painted pictures: the whence and whither of the wind, an Advocate/Counselor/Comforter who draws alongside, and the One in whom we’re clothed with power.
This past weekend the Lord used Brad Long to stir the Spirit’s presence in our midst. I’ve been interested to hear how people describe what the Lord did. Not surprisingly, it’s been mostly with pictures. Barbi said that it’s like the Lord upped the current from 110 to 220 – and it comes with different plugs. Janet said that it’s like what happened in 2 Kings 3 when the Lord brought water from out of nowhere to refresh a parched land. Brad himself said that his Sunday preaching felt like wading through syrup until the Spirit came with freedom and made it a dance. And that was just one of the comparisons to a dance.
It’s that last picture that I would lift up for you as a prayer request. The Session has its annual retreat this Friday and Saturday at Richmond Hill. With a thousand words they will pray and discuss what God is doing in our midst. Pray for them to have a clarity of concepts. But pray with a picture in mind too. Pray that they will readily follow the nudging leads of their Divine Dance Partner.
He is the One truly too good for words. Even the pictures don’t do him justice. You have to get to know him – which happens to be exactly his intention. And we get to do so together – wow!
Blessings,
Keith
