After spending last week immersed in Psalm 88 and dwelling on depression and aloneness, I received an email from YouVersion on Sunday afternoon entitled “You are not alone.” My first thought was …not just Google, even YouVersion is listening! But this topic is particularly relevant, especially to our friends around the world, some of whom are just beginning to come together again in person. For some, last Sunday was the first time in person gatherings have happened for over a year. I was particularly impacted reading of one minister celebrating Pentecost and while reading from Acts 2:1 could not get past the first verse “…The believers were meeting together in one place”.
And as the church re-gathered in North America, I was also aware that my brother’s small Anglican church in Newcastle closed its doors for the last time on Sunday.
So when we read Acts 2 and see what the Holy Spirit did when believers came together it reminds me what a privilege we have, – to gather together and allow God’s Holy spirit to work in us as a gathered church. Of course, the Holy Spirit works in each one of us as well throughout the week as we speak and interact with those around us. But there is something encouraging and inspiring about what God is able to do in us collectively when we submit ourselves to His purposes. Submitting to Him isn’t always easy especially if the people we gather with look or behave differently from us, have different views or ideas or are just plain weird! (That’s most of us to be honest.) But we are called to love each other and we are called to be more Christ-like so that means the person beside you is like the Holy Spirit with skin on. So let’s be kind to each other, love each other as Christ loved us and take that love, as the first believers did, to a world that so desperately needs it.
Catherine Perich