Two Knuckleheads

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would indwell us and empower us when we surrender to him as our Savior. If you have this Holy Spirit within you, you have and incredible power “at your fingertips.” But it sure helps to remember that you do.

I have a friend, we’ll call him Irv. (Because that’s his name) Irv has a brain as strong as a computer. He is bright, he is bubbly and he is born again. Anyone can immediately see the Holy Spirit power in the new Irv. Irv loves the Lord and is passionately pursuing him.

But Irv is a knucklehead.

You see Irv has a DVR at home that he never uses; a power he totally neglects. On several occasions I have suffered through similar stories such as this:

It’s Saturday and USC has a big game that afternoon. Irv’s family heads out that morning to run errands and do a little shopping, and maybe to go to one or two of the seven children’s games. With Irv’s five daughters and his lovely wife Paula, one can imagine this Saturday schedule may not be as efficient as us men would prefer.

Irv’s young teenage son Bubba loves the Gamecocks and Saturday morning he is bursting with excitement about the game. But as the day goes on and the time is slipping away, Bubba, stuck in the van with his family, starts to melt down a bit, and perhaps says something sassy to his mom, or unkind to his sisters.

Remember, five girls and a mom and a young teenage boy: chaos and bedlam ensues.

When Irv tells me these stories, and relates how powerless he feels in the midst of it, I rebuke him sternly, and say, “Repent Irv, for the Kingdom of TiVo is upon you!”

He has the power at his fingertips to avoid all this mayhem, if he would just record the game beforehand. With this power employed, everyone can relax. It will be okay. It will all work out. No stress. No anxiety.

But not if he ignores this readily available power at hand.

Now for the other knucklehead.

It’s Sunday afternoon in early June and I have just locked my keys in the trunk of my car … at Tablerock State Park … in the middle of nowhere. There is no cell phone service here, but that doesn’t matter because my phone is in the trunk.

No keys, no cell phone, no one around I know. I am stuck and I am powerless to fix this.

But there, off in the distance, shimmering with golden light, as an oasis in the desert, is the Park Office. “Yes sir, we have two garages we can call,” said the young Ranger, “but it’s Sunday, so who knows?” He calls and yes, of course, they are closed: it’s Sunday. No answer.

Frustration, despair, irritation, all descend at once. I feel totally helpless. I cannot fix this. I wander around in a depressed daze. I have no power at all, stuck here at Tablerock State Park. Then the young man perks up and says, “Do you have AAA?” Why, yes I do. I never even thought of this asset. One hour later the car is open and it cost me nothing.

The power of AAA!

I had completely neglected this power, so readily available to me. So had Irv. And we suffered worry and anxiety needlessly. We all have neglected the power of the Holy Spirit, so readily available to us, and are suffering C- lives because of it. Oh, it may look to you like a B+ or even an A life, but that Satan’s desire: to fool you into settling for mediocrity.                   

Irv and I have the Holy Spirit living within us. Yet we tend to forget about and neglect this power with which Jesus wants us to live. Why? Perhaps we are distracted. Perhaps we are ignorant. Perhaps we are just knuckleheads. Either way, we are missing a precious gift.

The great omission in the Body of Christ is the Holy Spirit. He is the missing link. Jesus makes it crystal clear the Holy Spirit is the link between himself and his power, and the power available to Born-Again Believers.

Miss this link and we miss it all.

Two knuckleheads, living with the Holy Spirit, but not with the power of the Holy Spirit. You’re not one of us, are you?