February 21, 2012

Yesterday I flew to St. Louis, took my son David flying over O’Fallon and Lake St. Louis, and shared lunch with him. It is always good to spend time together. My flight home was smooth until I was near Springfield, where the leading edge of a front was passing through. The clouds looked angry, and with winds 24 gusting to 29 out of the southeast there was a warning for low-level wind shear. The landing was interesting, but uneventful.

Today is “Shrove” Tuesday, with Lent beginning tomorrow on Ash Wednesday. As I was laying awake in bed from about 3:30 on I was thinking of all the things I need to do, all the people I need to contact, all the projects I must develop, and I was overwhelmed. I did not feel the spiritual weight of oppression I sometimes feel lying in bed (this usually happens on days I have a large responsibility, like Sunday morning) but instead a low level but overall sense of …. not failure, not discouragement, but something like “what’s the use”. I knew that if I got up and got going this sense would pass, and it has. Now I am leaning into this day which will include a hospital visit, staff prayer, worship planning, staff supervision, consulting with leaders, and exercise, plus the unknown opportunities God will bring across my path.

Acts 10

This chapter contains the amazing account of how God expanded Peter’s thinking about the church, and the inclusion of non-Jews. A man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian cohort, was praying one day and “he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come to him … and fixing his gaze upon him and being much alarmed he said, ‘what is it Lord?’ And he said to him, ‘Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.” The angel went on to tell him to dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon Peter to come.

As the men got near to where Simon was staying in Joppa, while he was praying he fell into a trance and saw a vision of unclean food being lowered down. He refused to eat because it was “unclean” but a voice spoke to him three times “what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” Just at that time the gentiles sent by Cornelius knocked on his door, and he went with them. When they entered Caesarea, Cornelius had assembled his family and friends to listen to Peter, who spoke to them about Jesus. The Holy Spirit fell upon them, and they began speaking in tongues. Peter “ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they asked him to stay on for a few days.”

This chapter reminds me that God is always at work. God notices when people pray, and when they help the poor. I am aware that God is at work today, in my life, and will lead my steps to those whom He has prepared. Guide me today most holy Lord, guard me from any discouragement that would hinder my fruitfulness as your servant on this day in February in the Ozarks.