"Anchorage....................."

”Where do I go when there's nobody else to turn to? Who do I turn to when nobody wants to listen? Who do I lean on when there's no foundation stable? I go to the Rock, I know He's able, I go to the Rock”….. Dottie Rambo

My wife underwent surgery Thursday, five hours at the hospital and coming home minus one of four parathyroid glands, the guilty party blamed for somehow a number of issues, but misdirecting calcium away from her bones being the major offense. With both of us now in our seventies, it’s just part of aging. It seems to me that life, in every stage, has presented its own set of circumstances. The journey has not been about knowing some equality or “fairness”, success determined by what has been achieved, happiness rooted in what we possess. The question is not “Why?” but “Who?” Who do I run to when the winds of sorrow threaten, when my soul needs consolation, or, for that matter, depend upon in all that I am in my stumble down the path? Wednesday evening Vacation Bible School had necessitated dismissal of our midweek class and I sat in the main sanctuary with a scattered few listening to our teacher preach a Gospel stripped of all the perks that Pentecostals have adopted over the last few decades. As I sat there listening to a plea for the Church, at large, to awaken again to the truth of “Christ in me”, my own thoughts spilled over onto paper, exploring a question that my group could well benefit investigating. Somewhere along the way, it seems to this old man, we have misplaced the facts. “Who is this Holy Ghost?” I asked myself. “A closet spook unable to be defined in any manner? A visitor who sometimes shows up in the middle of our meetings? A faith connection tangible only at certain times, available as an anointing only to a few certain elite, and otherwise merely a theology held in one’s head? Holiness has evolved from legalism to liberalism, not just in the sense of easing up on our list of “thou-shalt-nots”, but on our reverence of His reality as well. Today almost anything and everything claims itself to be an extension of such personality! While our people recognize a manifestation of His presence when it occurs in our midst, it seems to this old man that many, if not most, know little of moving under the influence of such divinity, realizing His will and His wisdom here and there in who we are and what we do. The gifts of the Spirit have been usurped and misused. The fruits of the Spirit have been either neglected or tried to be replicated out of our own efforts. We’ve been so busy claiming the promise that we’ve failed to grow in a relationship with the Promise who abides within us, so eager to embrace authority as ours that we’re deaf to the Authority willing to go with us in our humanity. Fortunately, His grace and patience is a deep well………