September 1, 2009

Daily Reflection

Joel 2:28  “I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
       Your sons and daughters will prophesy,…

 30 I will show wonders in the heavens
       and on the earth,
       blood and fire and billows of smoke

This is the text that Peter uses on Pentecost.  That is 50 days after Easter (pente=5 in Greek)  Joel calls the people to repent and this is God’s response.

On the side of Rocky Hill at 5:15 AM last Saturday a meteor, a shooting start illuminated the night.  It looked so close that we could touch it that it would have landed at the foot of Yokohl Valley on the other side of the hill.  The group I was running with all, “Oohed” and “Ahhed.”  When we regrouped up on the top of the hill, we talked about the experience of the meteor with childlike astonishment and wonder.

Monday, I learned that a group 30 miles away saw the same thing and they felt that they ‘oohed” and “ahhed” the same experience.  I told folks, I guess that meteor if it would have landed on the earth would have landed in Utah.  A friend then said, “What was God trying to say with it.”  I said, “It was 5:15 AM, probably just good morning.  Only off balance people are up at that time.”

When we see things in the sky, eclipses, meteors, comets…it catches our attention.  It reminds me that the universe is larger than me, a change in my myopic perspective.    The Hebrews without the knowledge of planets, leftover comet debris, and the wider expanse of heavens saw these as signs of God.  They were abnormal.

In Joel, it is not the heavens that represent the harbinger of the Day of the Lord, it is the people.  “I will pour out my Spirit on all my people.”  In the midst of outpouring of the Spirit and the day of the Lord is the notion that God does this for people.  Redemption begins with people, you and me.

As we partner with God, it begins with people.  We may look to the heavens hoping for a sign.  People in LA, I am sure are seeing God’s coming in the smoke.  As people waited. some saw it in Katrina.  It was the wrong view, the view is here and now.  Where is God at work in the person in front of us?  Then we know where God is at and that is why I believe this is the ‘Day of the Lord.’

Questions:

What is God doing in your life?

What is God doing in the lives around you?

Will you partner with God in what He is doing?

Are you afraid to do so?  Are you unaware?  Or, hopeful?