Читать книгу At the End of the Day - James W. Moore - Страница 20

That's what happened at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit blew on that place and brought God's truth. Throughout the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is the "Truth giver." The Holy Spirit comes to reveal God's truth.

Dr. Fred Craddock is one of the great teachers of preaching in our country. He tells a moving story about something that happened to him in the early days of his ministry. He was helping with vacation Bible school. He said, "It used to last for two weeks, but there were so many casualties among the teachers that we reduced it to one week!" Fred Craddock said that he had a group of juniors who were "driving him up the wall," especially after ten or eleven days with them, and especially one boy in the class. Dr. Craddock described that difficult boy like this:

There was this one boy in the class who . . . well, let me put it like this. . . . Have you ever had somebody in class that was so bad that you were glad when they were absent? . . . He was that type! . . . And quite honestly, I had written him off. He's not paying attention, I thought. He doesn't care. He doesn't want to be here. He is not interested in the lessons. He is only interested in seeing how crazy he can drive me and in disrupting the class. He is hopeless!

Dr. Craddock said he had gotten so worn out with it all that he was now simply trying to think of things for the students to do to keep them busy and out of his hair, and he thought of something. He decided to send them outside on a nature study, a study of creation. He gathered them at the door and said, "Now listen, when I ring the bell, I want you all to go outside and scatter and find one of God's miracles. And then when I ring it again, come back and show us what you have and tell what it teaches us about God." Dr. Craddock rang the bell, and they scattered. He said that his plan was "not to ring it again."

But he did. After a while, he rang the bell, and they came back with God's miracles. "Well, what do you have?" Dr. Craddock asked. One young boy had a rock. He said, "This rock reminds us that God is stout and God made the world." One girl had a flower. She said, "Only God could make a flower like this. It's so pretty!" Another girl had a leaf that had fallen off the tree and had turned brown. She said, "God made the seasons of the year, summer, fall, winter, spring." Another boy stepped forward with some huckleberries. He said, "God provides for us. He feeds the animals, and he feeds us."

"Well, that's great," said Dr. Craddock, and then he looked over and saw that especially disruptive boy, standing off to one side, with nothing in his hands. Instead, he was standing there holding the hand of his little sister, who had been down in the kindergarten class. Dr. Craddock was exasperated, and he thought, What is he doing? Why won't he cooperate? I guess they have to leave early. Why didn't somebody tell me?

Then this conversation took place.

"Leaving early?"

"No, sir."

"Well, did you bring anything?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did you bring?"

"My little sister!"

"Your little sister?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why did you do that?"

"'Cause she's God's miracle. I prayed for a little sister, and God gave me one. She's the best miracle I know of!"

Dr. Craddock stood there stunned because he knew the little boy was right! And he knew that God was there in that room, in that moment, closer than breathing. Craddock said, "I don't know whatever happened to that boy, but I hope he's still doing that. He was the only one in the class (including the teacher) who got the point." The Holy Spirit touched that little boy's heart when nobody was looking and gave him the truth—the truth that God's greatest miracles are people! "You want to see one of God's miracles? I'll go get my sister!"

This is one of the greatest truths of the Bible. We—you and I—are made in the image of God. Talk about a miracle! God made the squirrels, the elephants, the giraffes, and the duck-billed platypus. God made the trees, the flowers, and the skies. God made all of it and said, "That's good! Now, that's good!" And to cap it all off, God said, "Now, for the masterpiece: I am going to create something like myself!" And God made you! And it is a sin for us to say, "Well, I'm only human." If you want to see one of God's miracles, don't gather the pine cones, don't capture the squirrel, don't find a picture of a trout stream; just look at the person next to you. There is God's miracle! There is the crown of God's creation!

Sometimes when we least expect it, the Holy Spirit reveals the truth. That's what happened in that Vacation Bible School classroom that morning. There's another lesson here: Don't ever write anybody off. And whatever you do, don't write off the Holy Spirit. That's what Pentecost teaches us. The Holy Spirit redeems situations. The Holy Spirit reminds us of the truth.