Eastertide
April 25, 2016

Scripture Reading: Acts 16:9-15

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
–Acts 16:9-10

When do we trust our guts? When do take a dream or vison seriously? I score very high on the Myers Briggs personality type scale as being intuitive. I also score somewhat high on being a thinking person. Those two types find themselves in conflict at times. I over analyze my intuition. It is thus interesting to me the few times I never question my gut and act immediately upon what it is calling me to do. I sense that is what Paul did regarding his call to Macedonia.

Many years ago I took a sabbatical retreat wandering to and along the east coast in search of myself and my ancestry. In my planning ahead, I booked a stay at a bed and breakfast in the Poconos area of Pennsylvania. This part of my retreat was to be my quiet reflective time. I was definitely not pleased when I was assigned to a huge room with sleeping arrangements for five people, but decided to make the best of it. Then a large multigenerational family checked in across the hall and made the normal noise that any large multigenerational family would make. Thus I might have left the next day anyway. After the family had apparently headed out for an adventure and it was very quiet, I had the most urgent sense that I needed to leave there immediately. The keeper of the B and B was not home. I left a note on her table with a cash payment for the night and left. Driving west on highway 70 without stopping until I realized that it was getting dark, I began to look for a motel, found one, checked in, and then tried to analyze what I had just done. It made no sense to me and still doesn’t but I assure you I would do the same thing again. I think it had more to do with God working with me throughout the whole trip, granting me the peace I needed, and saying now get off your duff and get back to it. We do need to pay attention to those calls.

Prayer: Lord, I thank you for being my shelter in the storms of life when shelter is what I need and I thank you for pushing me back out into the wind and the rain when that is what you need. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.