Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

Peter Marshall was a much-loved preacher of the twentieth century who went on to become Chaplain of the U.S. Senate – quite an achievement for anyone, but particularly for a man who had immigrated here from Scotland.

     While still young Marshall spent a summer working in an English village called Bamburgh, about sixteen miles southeast of the Scottish border, and on the edge of the North Sea.  Around it were wheat and barley fields, pasture and moorland where black-faced sheep roamed.  To the west stood the desolate Chalton Moor.

     One dark night, Marshall was walking back from a nearby village.  He struck out across the moors, thinking he would take a shortcut.  He knew there was an abandoned quarry close by the road, but assumed that he could avoid it.  In her book, A Man Called Peter, Catherine Marshall describes what happened next:

The night was inky black, eerie.  There was only the sound of the wind through the heather-strained moorland, the noisy clamor of wild muir fowl as his footsteps disturbed them, the occasional far-off bleating of a sheep. Suddenly he heard someone call, “Peter!...” There was great urgency in the voice.  He stopped. “Yes, who is it?  What do you want?”

For a second he listened, but there was no response, only the sound of the wind.  The moor seemed completely deserted.  Thinking he must have been mistaken, he walked on a few paces.  Then he heard it again, even more urgently: “Peter!”

He stopped dead still, trying to peer into that impenetrable darkness, but suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees.  Putting out his hand to catch himself, he found nothing there.  As he cautiously investigated, feeling around in a semicircle, he found himself to be on the very brink of an abandoned quarry.  Just one step more would have sent him plummeting into space to certain death.

     This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, and the outpouring of God’s Spirit.  The Spirit is Christ’s promised presence; Christ’s power and guidance, comfort and strength at work in our lives and in this world.  An experience like Peter Marshall’s reminds us how near and real the Spirit is.  Most of us will never have that kind of encounter, but that doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t at work in our lives, too.

     More often than not, the Spirit’s presence is felt in the little things: a sudden urge to give someone a call, a sense of God’s nearness during a moment of prayer, or that moment when all the pieces seem to come together just when we need it most.  The Spirit isn’t given just to some, but to all who profess Jesus.  In fact, faith itself (as Jesus made clear, Matthew 16:17) is a sign of the Spirit’s presence at work within. 

     I love Pentecost.  I love the assurance it offers that God’s Spirit is moving even now.  And I know, finally, how dependent I am upon that Spirit for everything that is best and good in my life and in my ministry.  This Pentecost, claim the promise of God’s Spirit at work in your life, too.

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control... If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-25)