Monday 12 May 2008

Monday Reading: Acts 2:1-4
 
Key Verse: Acts 2:4
4  And they were all filled of the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
 
Devotion:
Can you imagine being able to speak a different language, fluently? I know that most of us go through school and do learn another language. Some of us are even brought up in homes where we do have two languages. But each of these instances requires a long period of learning and some period of applying what has been learned too. Here in the book of Acts we hear about the day of Pentecost (actually yesterday) when the disciples were given the gift to be able to speak in different languages. I know many people take this as being speaking in tongues, but as far as I can make out from the original languages it infers being able to speak in a language without first learning that language.
 
Can you imagine that? Being able to suddenly speak fluently in another language whereby other people can actually understand what you are saying! What a joy that would be when you go on holiday to another place! When my brother and I went to France some time ago, we slept on the beach and had a few things stolen whilst we slept. We then had to go to the local police to tell them what had happened. Unfortunately we were in a smallish town where they could not speak English and I had to use my very broken French I had learned in school! Eventually someone came in and overheard us and offered to translate. It was then I found out that I was apparently telling them we had slept on the beach and our stuff had flown away in the night! Boy, talk about a red face!
 
There are so many things in our lives that we will be faced with where we will not be able to cope by ourselves. We need to remember that wherever we are and whatever we are doing, God is going to be with us and is willing to be our aide. We need to exercise that by allowing Him to control the situation rather than through us trying to make the most of what we can do. It is only when we break things that we realise we cannot do everything… but if we are willing to allow Him to help us from the start, then we will find things can go a lot more smoothly!
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you always try and ‘go it alone’?
 
How often do you really give it over to God?