Peer Pressure: Working in the Water

I watched a documentary once on logging. 

It was fascinating to watch these massive logs with a circumference that you couldn't even get your arms around lying on the forest floor, and I wondered how they were going to move them to where they needed to go -- because there wasn't a lot of heavy machinery in this thickly forested setting. 

The main strategy for moving the logs was the river that flowed nearby. Once the logs were on the ground, the workers would use wedges and inclines and gravity to roll the tree into the water, where it would land with a great splash and then immediately surface. 

There was a guy swimming in the water who worked to strap harnesses around the logs as they came to keep them together, but the logs didn't wait for him to finish his work before they began to move. The tree trunks would begin their slow drift downstream toward their destination, and the man in the water would be carried along for a ride as he worked. When he was finished harnessing two or three tree trunks together, he'd swim back upstream and start over with the next few logs. 

There were other people working, too -- I don't recall all that they did -- but I remember being really impressed with the resilience of the guy in the water. It made my own back muscles ache just to watch him, because he never put his feet down (the river was deep). All the work he did made use of arm and core strength while he was carried along in the water. 

Similarly, the trees were massive and far, far too heavy to be moved even by the strength of all the men put together on that operation. But once those trees hit the water, they were carried along easily through the channel toward their destination.

I was thinking this morning about two things: 1.) Taking a stand, and 2.) being led by the Holy Spirit. These two things are not mutually exclusive -- you can stand your ground on matters while being led by the Holy Spirit, but I think often we get confused by what is Spirit-led and what is, essentially... peer pressure.

When I think of peer pressure, I think of middle school and high school, that formative time of life when we spend 99.9% of our days wondering what our friends will think if we (fill in the blank). Even as a 41 year old, I'm still not completely free of it (though certainly far freer than I was as a teenager). I still glance over my shoulder now and then and wonder what will happen if I speak out about this, or if I take a stand about that, or if I should entrench myself here, or if I should uproot myself there.

The Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning in 2 Peter 1:20-21, where Peter writes: "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

While Peter is speaking specifically of Scriptural prophecy, he's also indirectly addressing the state of Isaiah's spiritual well-being. Or Jeremiah's, or Ezekiel's, etc. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, et. al. were quite familiar to Peter -- he'd grown up on their writings; he and other writers of the New Testament quote their writings. Jesus Himself quoted their prophecies. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, et. al. were the "big boys" of Scriptural prophesy.

Why? Why were they so well-known? Why did their writings last?

Because these men "spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." They didn't plan what their attack strategy was going to be, necessarily; they spoke out when the Holy Spirit told them what to say.

But, but, hang on: The Holy Spirit doesn't officially come until Acts 2, so what's this all about?

True. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit comes with fire, resting on the heads of the believers who are gathered together in Jerusalem.

But there are multiple evidences of the Holy Spirit at work in the Old Testament, too, so the only explanation I can think of is that God -- isn't limited to only working within the boundaries of time. He shows up in human form to speak to Abraham beneath the Trees of Mamre in Genesis, even though this is looong before Jesus is ever formed in Mary's womb. He appears in human form with Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael in the fiery furnace. 

(Why didn't you just call them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Tamara? Everyone else does. Ah, peer pressure, I'm glad you asked; this deserves a whole blog post, which I won't write this morning, but I'll touch on it here. I don't call them by their Babylonian names for the same reason I don't call Daniel by his Babylonian name, Belteshazzar. Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all give honor to Babylonian deities: Bel (Belteshazzar), Aku (Shadrach and Meshach), and Nebo (Abednego). For a really interesting and thought-provoking commentary on this, I highly recommend reading this post by Christopher R. Smith on his Good Question blog).  

Anyway... where was I? Oh yes, Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The point is: God is not only the ultimate, powerful Creator of the universe after the resurrection of Jesus and the subsequent filling of His believers with the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

He's the God of all time, all days, all situations.

So when the "big boys" of Scriptural prophecy spoke and/or wrote their words, they were doing so by the power of the Holy Spirit -- a Holy Spirit that, with Jesus, with the Father, in Trinity fashion -- was, and is, and is to come (Revelation 4:8).

I don't know about you, but I know I've sometimes... *whispers*... forgotten about the Holy Spirit. Think about it: I grew up hearing my pastor and my parents and my friends praying: "Father, Good Father, Our Father, Father God..." Or, in more familiar, intimate settings with my small group or around the campfire: "Jesus, Good Shepherd, Fairest Lord Jesus, Yeshua..."

Maybe this isn't your experience, but it was mine: Very rarely did I ever hear anyone directly address the Holy Spirit: "Holy Spirit, Counselor, Intercessor, Speaker of the deepest groanings of my heart..."

Why is that, I wonder? Why do we in any way give less credence to this third Person of the Godhead? It's a thought to ponder and pray over; I really don't have an answer. 

Anyway, back to where the Holy Spirit led me this morning: Do we dig our trenches, take our stand, make our claims in anything but the places where the Holy Spirit carries us along?

If the guy in the water had tried to make any kind of a stand on that river bottom, a.) the trees would have mowed him over, and b.) he would have drowned. He was carried along by the current as he did his work.

That's in important detail. In fact, that's an essential detail, because should we be carried along by every current that comes our way? No!! There are riptides and dangerous underwater currents that will destroy us if we get caught in them. The point is: This guy had a job to do in the water.

The Holy Spirit carries us in the center of His will... if we let Him work through us to do His work, not ours. The moment we begin to try to do our work instead of His, the moment we listen to our peers or our social situations or we squirm a little because maybe the Holy Spirit has asked us to do something that stands out a little bit from the crowd... the river rushes over our heads, the trees hold us under, because we're pushing against the work He's given us to do.

One of those "big boys" of Scriptural prophecy said this: "Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?" (Isaiah 2:22).

Exactly. Yes, Paul says in Ephesians 2:10 that we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God prepared in advance for us to do...

But we are nothing, nothing... beyond our purpose in Christ. Of what account are we? Stop trusting in man; trust in the One Who carries us along by the Holy Spirit. We'll never find ourselves in the wrong place as long as we do our job in the water, as long as we are carried along in the center of His will.