Thank you. May I have another?

Yesterday was a different day all around for SRC. It started different because we were off campus at the Elks Lodge. But it got way more different. We are a pentecostal fellowship and our tradition places a high value on allowing the Spirit of God to work in and through us. Yesterday was a day when the work of the Spirit guided our service.

I am a planner. I have all my sermons planned for the whole year, and I believe that the Spirit leads me to that plan each year as I pray and prepare. This week for instance was supposed to start a money management series called When Pennies Pinch Back. But on Sunday morning as I was gathering up my sermon notes, I felt the Spirit impress me that it was not His message for the day.

On Tuesday night last week while I was at school my cell phone died and I didn't get to talk to my girls (which I do every night when I'm away). Instead Sydney left a voice mail for me. I shared it on Wednesday morning with my class and shared a devotional thought out of Romans 8. But on Sunday morning I felt the Spirit say that the message wasn't for Wednesday, it was for Sunday.

So yesterday I told the church that I felt this was the word from the Lord for us, and taught out of Romans 8. The scripture talks about prayer and how "We don't know what we ought to pray" so the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf. I was struck by the similarity in the message to what the Bible describes. I loved hearing from my daughter, but it is only because her mother helped her. Syd couldn't dial the phone, know what to say, and even when she spoke some of it was not understandable. But you know what? It pleased me as her father, just to hear from her. And because her mother was interceding (going between) I knew exactly what she was trying to say even if the words were jibberish. Take a listen and think of this...Do any of us sound any more eloquent when we pray to God? I don't think so. Thank God the Spirit goes between for us.

The best part of the morning came when someone quickly shared with me in passing that they felt they were the ones that needed to hear that from God. They simply said, "It was me." But it was enough for me to know that obedience to the Spirit can't be overestimated.

--Ben