"Dead Batteries........................"

This year my annual school requirement for four days of classes that the Board of Education, itself, provides on various topics has been met almost entirely with subjects that pertain to my job. Most of it has been no more than renewing an old man’s mind concerning safety and emergency procedures, CPR basics, minor medicinal dosage until help arrives, various restraints and escapes designed to protect me and the child should an incident occur. Legality, of course, is always an issue these days. That particular point was even more illuminated to me Wednesday afternoon in a one hour question and answer period wherein the lawyer who advises our county in such matters addressed the problems of fulfilling parental “rights”. I had never before considered the truth that so many of our students come to us from situations where mom and dad are not just separated in terms of divorce or never married in the first place, but one or the other possibly in jail, both, in some cases, having abandoned the child to either a relative or foster care. Sitting there and listening to, beyond the trauma it must bring to a young mind, all the frustration it brings to society in dealing with “humanity at large, I pondered the Biblical call of Christ for us to lift up our eyes and look on the fields “already white to harvest”. Sometimes I wonder, not just how to reach a world blind to their need of Him, but how to reach, as well, a church that seemingly fails to comprehend the truth of being indwelt by the third member of the Trinity. We talked in our midweek study the other night of knowing boldness in our witness, of taking “the Word” with us into our daily affairs, sharing it with whomsoever, at the supermarket, on the job, whatever arena we occupy. It was a good lesson, built around the historical account of Paul and Barnabas. There was, however, no real exploration of hearing His voice in the matter, of recognizing Him having “opened a door”, of surrendering one’s own sense of direction to the reality of His anointing. Such aspects of who we are, as believers, in truth are learned as we go and probably without our ever arriving at some point where we walk in perfection, no error at all in the relationship; but if we fail to teach this basic foundation of our faith, if we settle for nothing more than merely cloning doctrinal disciples, what hope do we have of convincing the world He has risen? If all I possess is a theology, the vessel void of any witness from the Holy Ghost, Himself, I’m just another Pharisee pushing religion upon the masse…..