I thought I’d be lost without my laptop.
One morning it just wouldn’t boot up. At first the screen dazzled me with
lines of color; when I tried to reboot it, it made little whirring, worried
sounds and the screen went blank. We brought in most of our computer systems
brain trust (Larry Heckel), who made little worried sounds of his own when he
examined it. I took it to a shop down the street, where a technician told me
it was the motherboard and asked me how often I’d backed up my data. We
finally mailed it off to a company who could fix it for less than our local
folks would charge and about a third of what a new one would cost, and I tried
to figure out how to get along without it for awhile.
I needn’t have worried.
We are living now among the Sundays after Pentecost, the season of the Spirit
- and as I look about at Good Shepherd, I see that the Sprit of God is very
much alive and well, even without my laptop. Mail seems to get through quite
well without it, the bills get paid without it, the Word gets preached, the
Gospel gets proclaimed, the Lord’s Supper gets served, people get Baptized.
Folks sweat their tails off at rummage sales, bake sales and egg roll sales
and somehow manage to price used clothing and still remain friends. Forty eight
hours later they regroup under that same tent in even more heat, for three evenings
of Vacation Bible School. The capital campaign to fund a church building is
building up steam, and a group has formed to pray for God’s direction
in that endeavor. We have a zillion things planned for summer, none of which
involve my computer but all of which involve the company of our God.
I sense a new energy among us. It is an energy born of the Spirit, to people
who are willing to work together and pray together for the sake of something
bigger than themselves, for a mission that will benefit not only our children
but our children’s children. It is an energy dependent not on computers
or technology or the work of our hands but dependent on the work of our God
- and if we are willing to trust God with just a little bit of our lives, there
will be no end to the energy we can draw on.
Pastor Jim
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Joel 3:28
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- July 2007
Copyright 2006 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.