When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace
(Jimi Hendrix).
Bedford, Indiana, my birthplace, was known as the “The Limestone Capital of the World”. There were numerous quarries or pits in the area which had filled with water and provided great swimming places for my friends and I to go on hot summer days. Bob, an older guy who worked at the mines, decided to go fishing at one of the quarries and invited Ralph and I along for an adventure. We believed there were big fish in the pits even though all we ever saw were small minnows swimming on the surface of the water.
We went to a work sight on Patton Hill to get our bait from a wooden shed, which had a sign on it saying “EXPLOSIVES”. Bobby had this idea about blasting the fish out of the quarries by the buckets full, rather than waste our time with a pole. The idea seemed to make sense to us so we took several sticks of dynamite, some blasting caps and off we went. We thought the big fish were on the bottom of the excavations so we inserted a blasting cap in one stick of dynamite, tied it to a rock, sunk it in the water and set it off with a flashlight battery. It exploded but we were very much disappointed. We sank two sticks and then we exploded six sticks. Our explosions grew bigger but all we managed to catch were a few little fish and leaves; nothing worthy of our bait.
Obviously, Bobby had miscalculated the where abouts of the big ones so we decided to fish closer to the surface. Ralph and I prepared one stick while Bobby hid behind a big boulder. We tied a rock to the dynamite and tossed it into the water. The rock came off when it hit the surface so I yelled NO! Bobby thought I said GO! He set off the charge. There was a deafening explosion. Everything grew unusually still as we stood there stunned. Suddenly an ocean of water came crashing down on our heads and our fishing experience came to a sudden halt.
The Bible speaks of God’s power in Acts 1:8, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you... " The Greek word for power is dunamis from which the word dynamite is derived. Dunamis means might, miracle, mighty works, mighty deeds and it also speaks of God’s greatness. The Lord God seeks to empower our lives by filling us with His Holy Spirit. Trying to do the Lords work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you (Corrie ten Boom). Be filled with power of His Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; Acts 2:1-4; 1 Corinthians 14:1-4).
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