Submitted by Pastor Donna Clark Fuller,

Rock Port and Watson United Methodist Churches

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…” Acts 2:5

In this week after Pentecost, let’s think a little bit about what God’s Holy Spirit, and spirituality in general, can mean in our lives.

We spend a lot of our time focused on specific tasks, working out problems at work, at home, or in navigating the details of living in this world. We have so many tasks to do that require our thought in a problem-solving kind of way, summoning our knowledge and experience gained over the years. We work towards specific goals at work. We pay the bills and find ways to live within a budget at home. We try to solve problems our children may have by helping them to learn to think in a way that will get them to a place where they can solve problems on their own.

But the Holy Spirit invites us into a place that is new. It may be a place where we don’t have all the answers, or a place where we have no prior experience. The Holy Spirit also gives us new power, new abilities, new wisdom. On that first day of Pentecost, the disciples were able to communicate with those who spoke different languages. Peter in explaining what had happened to the crowd reminds them of the words of the prophet Joel, that God in pouring out God’s Spirit would enable prophecy, visions and dreams.

When we stop our everyday routine, our everyday tasks done out of our own abilities, and let our spirits be open to God, we can see the vision that God has for us. It may be a vision for our lives. It may be a vision of what we can do to help others in the world. But it will always be a vision of God and God’s plan for the world. So please take time for your spirit to be open to God’s Holy Spirit. Amazing things can happen in those moments.