Thought for the Day – Tuesday 12th May
It seems to me that as some parts of our country begin to ease lockdown
restrictions that the news is now full of the leaders of the different
administrations speaking of keeping their message clear to avoid confusion and
radio and television presenters spending inordinate amounts of time actually
creating confusion! I do think, too, that much of that confusion as always
seems to be because people only listen to the part of the message they actually
wish to hear and ignore the rest!
I know we are still a few weeks away from Pentecost but all this
confusion abounding brought to my mind the scene which people experienced on
the Day of Pentecost which we read of in Acts 2: 1-21. Here is a little excerpt
from the beginning of that passage:
When the day of Pentecost had
come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came
a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where
they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a
tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there
were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at
this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them
speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked,
“Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each
of us, in our own native language?”
Of course, all those standing around in the confusion that day assumed
those who were speaking were drunk! Not one of those devout Jews even
considered that the prophecy of Joel which said,
“I will pour out my Spirit upon
all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” was actually coming
true before their very eyes!
At this time we might feel it all a little confusing but we have had it
made very clear to us up here in Scotland that nothing has really changed for
us – we still have our instructions - we are still to stay at home, protect our
NHS and save lives, maybe with that little extra time for exercise. I know it would
be so easy for us to be drawn into the confusion and listen to all those strange
competing voices around us interpreting what we can and cannot do or indeed for
us to pick out the bits of the advice from other areas we like and ignore the
bits we don’t like around even the smallest of changes to the Lockdown.
However, we have to remember that on that Day of Pentecost it seemed as if there was great confusion
but in actual fact something wonderful was happening and the Spirit was being
poured out on all flesh. We still have that Spirit within us today and if we
believe that and hold fast to that belief then in any time of confusion we will
know we should not be listening to all the strange voices around us but rather
to the Spirit within us, for it is the Spirit within us which will lead us to
do the right thing at the right time and which will guide us through any time
of confusion and when we look to verse 21 of the passage it reminds us to call
on the Spirit and reassures us that ‘…..
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Prayer
Loving Lord,
We seem as if in a liminal space at this time, a space where chaos and
disorder has confused our lives, yet a space where we can also find time to
rest and time to receive your peace. Lord, hold us in your grace at this time
and in all our times of confusion bring clarity, hope and peace to our lives.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment