nothing new--just a reminder

On Thursday I put up part of John Bunyan’s faith story. I love the little vignette he paints of how he overhears three or four women conversing about spiritual things. Their talk convinces him they have something he doesn’t have. He comes away with the conviction there is more of his human nature to spurn, more of the Bible to apply, more joy to be found. Their demeanor and conversation make him hungry for a life he has not yet known.

I think God often works this way. Though He uses us when we teach a class or hand out tracts, or sing on the worship team, more often our usefulness (or disqualification) comes in the way we live out life’s mundane events.

But this kind of testimony can’t be contrived. Unless we are completely His, and under His control through and through, our carnality will ooze through the fissures when we crack under the pressure of such ordinary occurrences as being bypassed for deserved praise, being presented with the bait of gossip, being kept waiting for our order at lunch, and a hundred other temptations and tramples on our ‘rights.’

However, if in our daily round we live in Holy Spirit power, with every breath consecrated to Him, our lives and words will communicate to the seeking bystander. What a challenge to me when I am behind the wheel of a car, involved in interactions with clerks, waitresses and telemarketers, chatting with friends over coffee...