AND THAT'S THE HOLY SPIRIT

My older son and I were moving what were to us some large piles of dirt from, in turn, both our places. Using my small pickup truck and a 5’ x 8’ utility trailer, we loaded both, shovel full by shovel full. We made two trips to a rock and dirt dump. There, we had to unload the same way we loaded. Shovel full by shovel full. We worked non-stop and as quickly as we could, but it was still a long, laborious task. As we drudged away at the dirt, many much larger vehicles--dump trucks and dump trailers--backed up next to us and quickly offloaded tremendously larger deposits of much heavier stone and concrete in a fraction of the time we were taking. When one would in seconds rid itself of its load and pull away, I would say tongue in cheek to my son in reference to them, “Show off!” as we continued to shovel. Although we had been working for some time, the much smaller pile of dirt we were leaving on the ground was dwarfed beside the loads they had disgorged. Our pile looked pitiful. How could it look so large in the trailer and so small on the ground? About the time I was thinking that, a worker at the dump drove up in a frontend loader. First, on one side of us then on the other, he lowered his bucket and with ease in one effortless thrust drove forward and pushed a pile over the side of the incline. As we watched the speed and ease with which the frontend loader dispatched the heavy and large deposits of stone and concrete, I pointed first to our sweat-drenched bodies and then to the comparatively tiny pile of dirt and said, “Us in our own efforts trying to do things in our “flesh.” Then I pointed to the frontend loader effortlessly dispatching another dumped deposit, “And that’s the Holy Spirit.” Though I do not believe I spoke them that day, it was the words of the ancient prophet that informed my remark: “…Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” (Zec 4:6).