May 5
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My son is now fifteen years old, and he hates it when I tell stories about him as a toddler, but this one is too good and too appropriate not to share! Sunday, May 11, is the time in the church year when we celebrate Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit was manifested in Jerusalem.
When my son David was four years old and in, his class was learning about smoke detectors and what to do in case of a fire in the home. They learned about what the firefighters do and they also learned that if they see a fire to call “911.” A few weeks later, on Pentecost Sunday, I was reading the passage from Acts 2:1-21 where the Holy Spirit came upon those gathered together in Jerusalem. As I was reading the part about tongues of fire resting on the people, David looked up from his bulletin (which he was coloring!) and asked Becky, “Momma, did Daddy just say that fire came down on their head? Becky replied “Yes.” David said “Oh,” but immediately looked back up at Becky and with amazement in his voice said “ON THEIR HEAD?!” Becky nodded her head “Yes,” just trying to get him to be quiet and not disrupt the service. David, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, then said “Well, Jesus just needs to call 911 and tell them to put that out!” I didn’t know what was going on as I was reading, but from the pulpit I saw the row David and Becky were on as well as the ones in front and behind them all of the sudden become very prayerful as all heads bowed and bodies began to shake!
It wasn’t until we got back home after the service that I found out what David had said, and we both had a long, hard laugh! But later on I began to think more about what he said, and I have wondered since that time if there is not a lot of truth in his innocent statement, at least in terms of the ways in which we sometimes put out the fire of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the church. We put out the fire of the Spirit whenever we:
-Talk about others behind their back or ridicule one another
-Become lax in our attendance at worship
-Become lax in our prayer life
-Fail to see and/or respond to the needs of one another
We put out the fire of the Holy Spirit in our life and church whenever we proclaim with our lips that we believe in Christ but proclaim with our actions toward one another that we have not yet truly made Christ Lord in our life.
By contrast, we fuel the fire of the Holy Spirit through the building up of one another, through consistent worship with brothers and sisters in the faith, through consistent prayer to God, and through meeting the needs of those who are hurting. Let us recommit to fueling the fire of the Holy Spirit in the world today. For the fire of the Holy Spirit is one fire which can never burn too bright or too hard or too long.
