The Flash! – October 23, 2014

Sometimes the best stories and lessons emerge from the more challenging moments in life.Sparing you the longer story about discovering a massive pool of green liquid under our car in a restaurant parking lot this evening, suffice to say I have never been more appreciative of the importance of anti freeze/coolant in the life of an automobile.

I will take the mystery of ethylene glycol to my grave.  How is it that the same stinky, green chemical compound poured into a radiator has the capacity to prevent an engine from both freezing up and boiling over?  In the end, however, I don’t really care how it works.  Especially on a night like tonight, I’m just grateful it does.  My role is to be sure there’s enough in the radiator and reservoir tank, and then to trust in chemical processes I will never comprehend.

Bear with me on this one…

Isn’t the Holy Spirit a little like ethylene glycol?  I have no idea how the Spirit works, but I surely have known moments when, without the Spirit’s presence, I would have either seized up because I became frozen or melted down because I boiled over.  It is the same Spirit which has the power to balance the extremes.  Our spiritual responsibility is to keep our reservoir of faith filled, and then to trust in the Spirit to help maintain our equilibrium.

Allow me to take this one more step.  I believe this is why God blesses us to be in relationship with one another, and why we have communities of faith.  We are called to be like ethylene glycol – the Holy Spirit: to help each other mind our spiritual reservoirs; to encourage one another to have faith and trust in God; and to be anti freeze for one another when the journey is cold, and coolant for each other when the road is hot.

Peace,
Andy