Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Go Up and Join This Chariot

You remember the night before the first day of school?

The butterflies in your stomach kept you awake.  As much as you tried to sleep, you just couldn’t.  Thoughts of the year ahead raced through your mind.  Would you like your teachers?  Would you be accepted into the popular group?  Would you make new friends?  Would the cute boy notice you?

Those butterflies—well, they translate through the years into adulthood.  They have the nerve—the irritating audacity—to follow you!

Ever since I turned in my resignation I’ve been feeling them flutter around.  Anxiousness over leaving and anxiousness over beginning have mixed together to form a girl living in the limbo of the in between.

A week from today my time at the bank will come to an end.  I’ll be reeling—a girl comfortable in routine and the expected, I may have an aneurysm when I turn in my keys.

The good news about nervousness is, just as it is with sorrow, it keeps you in need of Christ.  We need Christ all the time, yes, but, unfortunately, I find that nervousness is quite a good propeller.

Recently, I fell in love with a Subaru commercial.  You know the one.  A cute little blonde-headed girl holding her daddy’s hand before the bus arrives to take her away to school on her first day.  Dad lovingly watches her board, and before you know it, he has hopped into his trusty Subaru, driving alongside her.

Isn’t that an image of God?  He lets go of our hand, and watches us.  Crying when we cry.  Rejoicing when we rejoice.  But He does one better than the Subaru dad.

He’s doesn’t just drive side-by-side, but unto us He has given the Holy Spirit.

"…that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you."  John 14:17

The Holy Spirit just doesn’t sit beside us on the bus, but is in us.

Which, let’s face it, is pretty cool.

John 14:26 reads: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”  And teach He does.  Encourage.  Convict.  Push.

In Acts 8:29, we see the Spirit pushing Philip the evangelist.

And the Spirit said to [him], "Go up and join this chariot."

Go up and join this chariot?  Okay, Holy Spirit.  Philip is aware of His presence and obedient.

And you know what?  Philip got to do some pretty cool things before he left this earth.

And by cool I mean he got to save lives.  SaveLives!

God gave me a chariot to board.

And God sent the Holy Spirit right along with me.  The forgotten God interceded during interviews, through assessment tests, through interactions—pretty sure He was there through everything.

And so after writing this, I’m not quite sure I am still so anxious as I was at this entry’s beginning.  I look upon all that He has already done to know that He is ahead of me already, having the Spirit guide me in the present as He walks ahead in my future.

Whatever chariot He’s asking you to board, He’s not expecting you to ride alone.  Not just beside you, but in you is He offering comfort as God sets your path before you.

“…He will give you The Comforter, that He may abide with you forever…”

And comforted, let us rest tonight to greet tomorrow not in anxiousness, but eagerness, with a peace that surpasses all understanding.