Happy Ground Hogs Day! 

You may be asking yourself"

“What does Ground Hogs Day have to do with the Holy Spirit?”

I am about to tell you. 

My presumption is that Ground Hogs day was invented by some very bored people in PA who grew weary of winter and one day they noticed a ground hog stick its nose out of the ground.  Whether it was sunny that day or cloudy, the observers made a prediction of 6 more weeks of winter or winter was over.  Either way, they made it up. Why 6 weeks instead of 4 weeks or 8 weeks. Ground Hogs don’t know. For that matter, neither do the highly paid weather professionals with millions of dollars of weather equipment.  Weather is unpredictable and powerful and not subject to the whims of a ground hog.  It is important to note that for the last 20 or 30 years – they plant Punxsutawney Phil in a hole that is surrounded by cameras and millions of people watching. It’s all staged and it has no bearing but it makes for ?great? TV? Or at least distraction from the winter months.

The Holy Spirit

In the Jim Brangenberg Bible Paraphrase I hear Jesus saying in the Book of John:

“I must go so that the Holy Spirit can come. If I am here, He can ‘t come and you need Him because He will live in each one of you with power and strength. You will be able to do even greater things than I have been able to do because of what I am about to do – Die and Raise from the Dead – and the Holy Spirit will do those incredible things through you.” 

(Read John 16 for yourself in your favorite translation)

It seems however, that we have forgotten those words. We often discount this truth and replace it with a more rational, reasonable, predictable Holy Spirit that doesn’t make us uncomfortable.  We talk about the Holy Spirit at church but then tend relegate Him to the back row and ignore His presence in our lives.    Just like the ground hog we have placed the Holy Spirit in the spot light only for show.  However, the Holy Spirit is like the weather. Unpredictable, Powerful, Unexplainable.   Does He effect your life this way?

Perhaps one of Bill Murrays greatest movies, and he had many, was the movie Ground Hogs Day.  Many of you will go look that up and watch it today.  He got stuck in a time loop doing the same things every day, living in meaningless and having to wake up to the music of Sonny and Cher every morning.  Then one day things changed for him.  Today could be your day to let things change.  Wake up to a new song!

I am a follower of Jesus, and it is because of the incredible things that He did for me.  Everything about me should be changing and that change is driven by the power of the Holy Spirit. I want to stop relegating the Holy Spirit to a fairy tale status and never view the Bible as just a book of history.  The Bible is a life handbook and it says the Power of the Holy Spirit is life changing.  Let’s be Led by God’s spirit today and not pretend that we believe a ground hog. I want to go all in for Jesus today, be transformed and let His overwhelming unpredictable Holy Spirit power change everything about me.  What about you? 

For the Kingdom