Pentecost Has New Meaning

The incredible blessings that I received yesterday yielded some unexpected results today. As we came to the house today there was a spirit of strength that washed over me. Experiencing with such depth and power the reason that we were all in Mississippi doing the work that we were doing brought with it a power that overcame a very slow morning. Let’s just say that the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. We’ve been working pretty hard and after a very rich meal last night (our team went to a local restaurant) I was really slow getting moving. When we got to the house all of that changed.

We had a larger crew this morning. Because of the amount of work and the urgency to get this house online, we brought in additional people from our larger crew. Dave, our team leader, did a stellar job moving us around the house to maximize our work. I finished framing a doorway in the upstairs hallway. This was a project that I had begun yesterday and ran out of material to finish. It didn’t take long to finish the job, and then I got to work with my colleague from the San Dieguito church on hanging drywall. We split up the work and went after it. Even though there was a pretty strong wind outside, the temperature was warming up and the southerly wind was pumping humidity into the region. The upstairs got warmer and warmer. As warm as it was, I was completely undeterred. I was extraordinarily energized to continue the work. I realized that each nail pounded, each piece of drywall hung got the house one step closer to occupy. Each piece of the project we completed in this house moved the Gulfside Assembly one step closer to being rebuilt that it might continue its vital ministry on the Gulf Coast.

This energizing had only one source. I know that it was the work of the Holy Spirit in me and through me that moved me and motivated me. The way I felt this morning when I woke up, the Spirit’s power is the only thing that could motivate me. Through the course of the afternoon as I began the journey home, I began to experience the realization that I have experienced a new and deeper lesson of Pentecost. I came to Mississippi looking for Jesus. I was totally open to experiencing the power and presence of Christ in a new way in my life. I had no idea what this new experience would look like, but that didn’t deter me. I sought to be open, aware and prayerful. I sought to be faithful to the mission that I was called to do in Mississippi. In this, Christ revealed himself to me in the work, through my teammates and through the people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The Pentecost experience and the power of the Holy Spirit are about God’s work of claiming and empowering ordinary people who seek to be faithful to their calling in Christ to do extraordinary things in the world. The Spirit can, and does work independently of us, but like on the day of Pentecost when Peter and the others, through faith and trust in Christ opened themselves up to the Spirit’s movement, the world was never again the same. I experienced that power in Mississippi this week and I look forward to sharing that experiencing and looking for that experience in Murrieta.

Come Holy Spirit, Come!!!

From the skies over northern Alabama, May 8, 2008, 10:35 pm.