DRUNK IN THE SPIRIT

            I wrote just days ago of the evils that issue from big players and small when they are drunk with power.  As Tolkien wrote so well in The Lord of the Rings, power manifests in a size and scope consistent with the grasp of the bearer, but it always devours the bearer as surely as it seeks to devour its victims.  The only alternative to eventual death for all concerned is to surrender the power to destruction – as Frodo did with the help of Sam and even Gollum.  It is actually true that – once we decide to obey rather than defy God – He works all things together for good as He promises in Romans 8:28.  Not always right away, but one way or another.

            Think of Israel.  How drunk with power must Secretary of State John Kerry be to convene talks on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, conclude an agreement, and exclude Israel?  The avowed purpose of Iranian foreign policy is the destruction of Israel first and the US thereafter.  Does Kerry actually believe Israel is going to say “Please and thank-you,” to the gathered might of the nations in these talks designed to seal her fate without so much as a howdy-do?  But, some would say, what can a nation of seven million do if we throw them under the bus?  The question should be, rather, how we will fare if we let Kerry lead us in his ignorance and his arrogance.  Israel is the only nation in the region already having a nuclear arsenal, and the only nation standing to have never lost a war.  She is the only nation banking on a promise from God Himself that He will never again tolerate injury to His first-born.  How drunk must we be to not get that? 

            Of course many will say it is blue-sky thinking to claim God has made – or will keep – such a promise. But it is a fact of history that no nation on earth has ever been resurrected after total destruction like that of Israel in the first century.  They have fought to victory in five wars against overwhelming odds.  They have made the desert bloom despite the poverty in which they arrived after World War II.  If there is a better explanation than God having their backs let someone share it.  Or we could decide God actually spoke the Bible – and the world – into existence with a particular plan and He is going to have His way.  We could become drunk in His Spirit.

            When we are drunk – on anything – we tend to discard our inhibitions, our judgment, and our ability to carry out our plans.  But when the intoxicant is power we tend to become full of conceit and when it is God’s Spirit we tend to fill ourselves with humility.  In His Spirit we tend to behave like He does.  That could mean engaging with Israelis as well as Iranians instead of deciding Israel’s fate and breaking it to them.  It could mean reforming healthcare along the lines of the Price Plan – advanced by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia – which provides all of the relief and none of the coercion of Obamacare.  It could even mean little things like observing the half century passed since the Kennedy assassination with all living former presidents attending, not just the Democrat ones.  (This is one of the crassest examples of official pettiness, rudeness, and vindictiveness I have ever seen.)  Being filled with God’s Spirit ultimately leads us to do right instead of what we want.  The fruit is better and a whole lot longer lived.

            Now in my own city of Redding the local government has engaged in talks with the McConnell Foundation – who leases land on the Sacramento Riverfront, which is owned by the Kutros family – on the future development of that land.  The owners have been excluded from the talks.  God has a few choice things to say about people who disregard the rights of landowners.  In Florence, Colorado, a school district is persecuting a group of high school girls because they and their parents object to a boy showering with them after the school board has made a policy permitting it.  God has something to say about arrogant authorities harming His little ones.  Officials in both cities appear drunk with power.  It might be Redding needs a better plan for these talks.  It might be Florence needs to come alongside its families instead of its social engineers.  It could even be we all need a whole new attitude about intoxication – are we after power or seeking the Spirit of the living God?