May 3, 2016

“Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.”
Acts 8:26-28

Sometimes the Holy Spirit leads us to do random things for really random people, people we hardly know – as well as for those who are really special to us. In the very earliest days of the church, Philip was chosen to be one of the first deacons. One day, instead of preaching in the city like he had been doing, the Holy Spirit (here in the presence of a Holy Messenger) told Philip to go walk down a different road. Because Philip did what the Spirit led him to do, Philip met a man who was eager to learn about Jesus and salvation.

We don’t often hear the Spirit telling us to do something as clear as “Go and walk down that street, or that other street,” but if we practice being still, quiet, and patient, we can learn to pay attention to how the Holy Spirit directs us into situations where we can have an influence. The problem is, we have to carve out that time from our busy schedules to be still, quiet and patient.

Lately I have been noticing how quickly the weeks go by. It appears to me that I have just finished preaching on a Sunday morning, and before I know it, I am back in the pulpit for another Sunday sermon, and I wonder “Where did the week go?” Life seems to be going by me in fast forward motion. It is when I am feeling like this that I need to realize that if I do not carve out special time for G-d, then I may be missing opportunities to experience the presence of the Spirit. It is important because, while we may be thinking “I should go down that road”, G-d may be planning for me to “Go down this other road.” The only way I will know for sure is to find the time to listen to the Spirit’s direction in my life.

Pastor Dave