Lent Day 22: Thankful for the Living God

"I keep looking for your aha moment," said my dissertation adviser. "What is it that you learned?"

I defend the dissertation next week. It's been written, rewritten, and revised over and over. I've learned a bit of this and a lot of that. But I started asking the question during prayer, "What is the aha moment? For what have I spent all this time?"

So ... this morning, it hits me like a thunderbolt. What IS significant from all my studies? From reading the endless historical material and wading through Evangelicalism, which interests me less than a fig? What stands out from a few years of studying early Pentecostals in all their chaos and earnest efforts?

This is it: the story I have to tell is a simple understanding and an affirmation of similar experiences that transformed my own life during my childhood and teens =

Ordinary women encountered the power of the Living God. Regardless of what they faced thereafter––legalism, gender bias, or suffering––they could point back to a time and place where they spoke in tongues as proof of empowerment. God was personally invested in them and was greater than anyone or anything they would meet or endure.

Today, that power of Spirit baptism is available to you and to me. Appropriate it for yourself: it's God's free gift for all those he has rescued from darkness into the light of his presence.

Read more:

*Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. Psalm 62:9

*Christ says, "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." Mark 10:15 

*And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28 NKJV

Prayer: Thank you, Jesus, for loving even us. In childlike faith, we come to you and ask for your power, to live for you and do your work. Take away our pride while reminding us that you find even us worthy of your loving favor. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.