The Wrong Place and Time
Walking a beach at high tide hoping for the best shells is rarely productive. You are looking at the wrong place and time. What if this is a metaphor for life?
A seasoned shell and shark teeth hunter knows that you need a location that funnels the current into a small area and to look in that area about an hour before low tide. A seasoned fisherman/woman knows that if you want to successfully find fish to catch, you need to know where they are and when they will be planning on eating. Failure to understand the dynamics of location and timing will frustrate you.
I can’t help but be struck by the spiritual dynamics in play for those who follow Jesus. Yes, Jesus is going to show up church campuses all over the world on Sunday. However, he is also present in your school, coffee shop, grocery store, workplace and neighborhood. God has sent His Holy Spirit all over the map today and the Spirit is likely much closer than you have considered.
I read “Reframation” by Hirsch and Nelson and was struck by the ways God uses just about everything as a tool to awaken a desire for the spiritual in everyone. If we only look for the awakening of the Spirit on our campus on Sunday then we are prone to miss 167 our of the 168 hours in which the Spirit is at work around us. He is awakening a desire for the spiritual in someone near you this very moment.
Part of my personal struggle and, as a result, my personal journey is to seek to discover the countless ways I was never trained to noticed the Spirit was awakening people around me. It is God’s will that no one perish and for that reason He is actively awakening people to His love and power to transform. The problem is that I have for so long been looking in the wrong place at the wrong time and the results have been frustrating.
The cool part in all of this is that the Spirit is looking to awaken in followers of Jesus a new vision to see what we have never seen and to hear what we have never heard. The Holy Spirit is speaking and moving in powerful ways in the lives of people we know who do not yet know what it means to live life fully in Christ and it is time we also open our heart, mind and eyes to the shaping work of the Spirit so we can join Him in what He wants to do all around us.
Father, help me to see where your Holy Spirit is at work today in peoples lives and to know what role you have for me in those powerful, often quiet, moments.