Communion With The Spirit

A river, normally peaceful and picturesque, flowed through a small town but heavy rains had caused the stream to swell to a raging torrent that had exceeded flood stage threatening the neighborhood where a crotchety old man lived.   The authorities recognizing the threat to those living near the river and realizing that the level of the river would continue to rise, issued warnings to the residents to evacuate their homes.

Police officers were dispatched to the area with instructions to go door to door and ask residents to leave for the sake of safety, but the old man choose to ignore their pleas telling the officers when they came to his door that the Lord would provide for his safety.

The floodwaters continued to rise, getting deeper and deeper.

The old man started praying to the Lord asking that God would spare him from the impending flood and shortly after he started praying he was distracted from his prayers by a noise outside of his house, he looked out the door and noticed that the water flooding down his street was at least knee deep and the noise that had distracted him was coming from a military truck, the National Guard having been called out to aid in the disaster. The soldiers pleaded with the old man to accompany them to higher ground and safety, but as before with the Police, he rejected their assistance telling them that the Lord would provide.

The floodwaters continued to rise, getting deeper and deeper and now the first floor of the old man’s house was completely inundated by the waters and he was forced to seek safety on the upper level of his home. Continuing to pray, asking the Lord to save him from the flood, he was again disturbed during his prayers by a noise. It was the local fire department emergency workers in a boat just outside his window who also pleaded with the old man to let them take him to safety but as before he told them to go away that the Lord would provide.

Well the waters continued to rise and he was forced to climb out the second floor window onto the roof of the house and perched there he continued to pray when out of the blue  a Coast Guard helicopter whose crew once again tries to reason with the old man and rescue him from the flood, but once again refused citing his faith in the Lord.

So as the waters continued to rise eventually covering the house, the old man was swept away and he perished in the flood.

The next thing he knew he was in heaven before almighty God, and he fell down on his knees and cried out “Oh God, why did you forsake me and let me drown in that flood?”

God replied, “My dear child, I didn’t forsake you, I sent the Police to warn you of the danger, I sent the military to evacuate you, I sent a boat load of firemen to take you to safety, and I even sent a helicopter to rescue you off of that roof, what more did you expect?”

Although fictional and somewhat of an example sophomoric humor, this story is one that I have often used as illustrative metaphor, a parable of sorts, so as to teach that at times, God works through mysterious ways to help us.  Sometimes God send others into our lives to teach, to listen, or as in the case of the old man, rescue us from impending disaster.

Sometimes instead of sending others into our lives, God speaks to us through the voice of the Holy Spirit.  That small inner voice of sound reason and counsel.  But some of us are so misled by worldly concerns that we at times confuse that voice of the spirit with other voices, a state of lack of personal communion with the Spirit.

While the story of the old man and the flood was fictional, please allow me to share a tale that I know to be true, as I was there when it happened.

Today, even in most parts of rural America, when you call an ambulance a team of highly trained professionals will arrive at your location with all sorts of advanced medical and communications equipment.  The philosophy of treatment is that of to stabilize the victim before transport through the use of radio communications with a doctor at a trauma center, the doctor using the medical technicians or paramedics as his eyes and hands so as to administer the appropriate care to the patient.  However in years past, rural Americans did not have this life saving luxury.

Years ago, state laws allowed for ambulance attendants to be licensed with only training in advanced first aid, often this training was received through a few hours of classes at the Red Cross.  Being a volunteer with a fire and rescue unit, I took the Red Cross course, mailed a copy of the certificate of completion to the state, and within a few days I received this small wallet card stating I was licensed by the state as an ambulance attendant, a procedure that in no way begins to compare to the rigorous training and examination by state boards that is required of emergency medical technicians today.

The monitoring and communications equipment used by modern day paramedics was available but due to the costs involved was seldom used by the ambulance services that often were privately owned businesses.  In those days the philosophy of emergency treatment was to quite literally scrape up the victim, load him or her into the ambulance and run like the wind to the nearest emergency room.  Being young and adventurous, I often would work nights as a volunteer at an ambulance service owned by a “friend of a friend,” usually as a dispatcher answering the phone and operating the radio, but sometimes getting to ride along as an attendant.  It was on one of these nights, that I experienced the following.

In those days, with the exception of the interstate, most of the highways leading into or out of town were narrow two lane affairs, choked with commuter traffic as well as eighteen wheeled semi trucks hauling freight from here to there.  On this one particular night we received the call from the Highway Patrol that a semi truck had run over a pedestrian that had been walking along a highway north of town.  Upon arrival at the accident scene we learned that the pedestrian had for no apparent reason, stepped in front of the truck so suddenly that the driver was helpless and not able to respond in time so as to avoid striking the victim.

Like I said earlier, the conventional wisdom of the time was to get the victim into the ambulance and transport as quickly as possible to the hospital, so we loaded this guy into the back of the ambulance and headed toward the local ER.  During transport we started to do everything possible to control the bleeding and stabilize the patients legs which had suffered multiple compound fractures from just below the hips to the ankles.  We noted that although the patient had suffered such extreme injuries, he was remarkably aware and communicative, as if he felt no pain.  Due to extraneous circumstances and the patient’s reactions it was easy to conclude that he was “high” on some sort of illicit drug, this “high” contributing to his state of not feeling pain.

We arrived at the ER and gave our report to the Doctor who after examination agreed with our speculation that the patient was probably strung out on some drug.  The doctor and staff having stabilized the patient and ordered immediate surgery, stepped out of the room while a nurse was getting this guy ready for further treatment.  I was at a sink washing the poor man’s blood off of my hands when I heard the nurse ask him, “Why did you walk out in front of that 18 wheeler?”  The man lying on the hospital bed, still fully responsive replied, “Why the LORD, told me to walk out in front of that big truck!”  This lady, one of those proverbial saints in a nurse’s uniform, with sadness in her voice corrected the man by saying “No, no, I don’t think it was the Lord that told you to step in front of the truck, I think it was those drugs you are on.”

Now keep in mind, I was just a punk kid, 18 or 19 years old, washing my hands and watching this conversation transpire.  After the nurse had gave him her opinion that the voice that instructed him was not of divine origin, the man raised his head off of the pillow and with a look of startled disbelief on his face, questioned the nurse, “WHAT, you mean I did all of this for nothing?”

The scene of that night some thirty years ago still haunts my memories, just as the scenes of the many alcohol related accidents wherein we extricated both young and old, sober and drunk, alive and dead victims from cars mangled beyond recognition.  It never ceases to amaze me and to bring me great sorrow when I contemplate on the consequences we bring upon ourselves when we abuse the God given gift of freedom of choice and turn to drugs and alcohol for answers to our problems.  The physical carnage I have personally witnessed, as well as the domestic problems arising from substance abuse are indeed nightmares of our society, somewhat reminiscent of the horror movies produced in Hollywood studios.  While some falsely blame God for these events, I humbly submit that it is not God that tells us to do these things, it is not the voice of the Holy spirit, but rather our lack of connection with the voice of God or failure to establish communion with the Spirit.

Flip Wilson, that great comedian, made popular the phrase, “The Devil Made Me Do It,” however I agree with most secular and sectarian authorities that the Devil doesn’t make us do anything.  There is no little cartoon creature with horns, a long pointed tail and a pitchfork setting on our shoulders whispering into our ears.  But rather we through the freedom of choice, succumb to all sorts of temptation when we fail to heed the voice of reason, the voice of God, and freely choose to listen to that inner voice that rises out of the lower ego, the lower self, that voice that is victim or susceptible to spiritual oppression, a state of being out of communion with the spirit.

While many of us are not under the influence of drugs and alcohol when we make a bad choice or decision in life, we can be failing to accept the grace of God and unintentionally placing ourselves in a position of being susceptible to spiritual oppression.  When we are full of self-doubt, self-depreciation, depression from extraneous outward influences and in the same respect, in other cases, full of false pride, self-aggrandization, we might be under spiritual oppression.  When we succumb to lusts, materialism, greed, hate, anger and even sometimes fear, we might be under spiritual oppression.

As we mentioned earlier, it is a mistake to believe that God causes misfortune in our lives, for at times some of us are like the Old Man and the flood in the story we first looked at.  Let us consider the lessons in the book of Luke describing the temptation of Christ;

And he (Satan) took him (Christ) to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” And Jesus answered him, “It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Luke 4:9-12

Satan had taken Christ out of the desert and placed him on the pinnacle or highest point of the temple in the city.  He tempted Christ by telling him to jump off of the top of the building and told him (Christ) that it was written that God had ordered certain angels to always look over Christ so as to make sure that he didn’t even trip over or bruise his foot on a stone, Christ being the son of God and worthy of such a high respect.  But Jesus told Satan, that we should never test or try God to see if he will answer our wishes, whims, or desires.

When we in turn put God to the test, are we not like Satan, testing our Father?  Can we then say that when we do this we are under a state of spiritual oppression?  Is this not a condition of being out of communion with the spirit?  Graceful prayers of gratitude, full of humility are one thing but tests of our Father are another all together.  Jesus refused to test his Father as he knew he was in total communion with his Father and had no need to reaffirm or test God’s care and love for him.

We spoke earlier about self-doubt, self-fears, self-depreciation, and can we not ask if these are signs of a lack of faith?  Consider the story in Matthew 17 when the man brought his tormented son to Jesus to be healed and told our Lord that his disciples had tried to cast the demon from the boy but had been unable to accomplish the task:

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:19&20

We can learn from this scripture that lack of faith or self doubt can be a form of spiritual oppression.  We must always keep in mind that unless we try, we will never know if we can.  Consider this verse;

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Luke 11:9&10

I can attest to this concept on a personal basis, you see before I accepted the calling into the ministry, my wife suggested that I would make a good minister, but being full of self doubt, lack of self worth, I rejected her suggestion, for a time.  After accepting the calling and looking at the numerous messages and personal reports I have received from men and women all over the nation, telling me of the difference my work has made in their lives, I now know that God intended for me to serve his people.  My previous self doubt causing a lack of faith or a lack of communion with the spirit.

We are called upon in our own generation to develop the disciplines required for loving and open communion with God, the world, others, and ourselves.  We need to recover the art of communion and so recover the universe as God’s, and rediscover our roots in God, in the world, in one another, and in our inner selves.  [1]

This process of rediscovery allows us the knowledge to ascertain the difference between the voice of the spirit and the voice of spiritual oppression.  It reconnects us to God  and gives us the ability to resist temptation as well as the tools necessary to avoid depression from self doubt and lack of faith in self as well as of lack of faith in God.

Just as in the story of the Old man and the flood we learn to look for miracles in the form of others that God sends into our lives and we learn from the story of the man that I helped to scrape up from the highway all those many years ago, to resist the temptation to look to drugs, alcohol, and other dark places for the answers instead of turning to God.

[1]from Living In The Spirit by Rachel Hosmer and Alan Jones a part of the teaching series of the Episcopal Church. copyright 1979 by the Seabury Press