During my junior year of college, I took a course in complex variables.  The professor was a kind, gentle, elderly man, and while he didn’t directly teach much of the material, he did a good job of telling us what was important, how the ideas related to those in the rest of mathematics, and how beautiful the subject matter was.  I especially enjoyed his stories of how he had used some of the subject matter twenty years earlier during WW2, when he was in the Navy designing submarine hulls.  On the first day of class he said that our grade would be based on the final exam and three or four problem sets.  About four weeks into the semester we had to turn in our first problem set.  The problems were challenging, and it took a lot of time and effort to solve them.  The next class period he came into the class with the stack of papers in his hand.  He then wound up and THREW the papers at the class, creating a paper snowstorm.  He said, “Your writing is terrible!  You should respect your work enough to present it in a form suitable for publication.”  As you can tell, regardless of the rules of war, math professors didn’t take prisoners in those days.  He asked us to rewrite the papers and resubmit them the next class period.  For me, it was a shock, and also a revelation.  I was an unsophisticated country boy, and it had never occurred to me that my chosen profession would involve writing for others.  Well, it did.  And now this math guy is even venturing outside his field, struggling to write this devotional blog.

            I hadn’t thought about this episode in years, but the lack of activities during this pandemic period has made me remember many from the past.  Somehow, the memory of this episode brought to mind the Apostle John.  John was not highly educated, and was an unsophisticated fisherman from Galilee, a region considered backward by much of Israel.  I’m sure that when he put down his nets to follow Jesus, he never imagined that he would become a writer, let alone write works that would form much of the New Testament and be seriously studied for over two thousand years. 

            With his limited preparation for the task how did John mange to proceed?  I’m sure the urge of his calling pushed him forward, but probably he felt trepidation nevertheless.  I think what kept him going forward was his faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Similarly, we as Christians are often called to do things for which we feel ill prepared: participate in services, sing in the choir, teach a Bible study, usher and welcome visitors, visit those in need, and yes, even write a devotional blog.  The Holy Spirit is there for us, also.  At Pentecost in welcoming the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter quoted Joel 2:28, which in part says, “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”  I’m sure John remembered this as he wrote.  Recording the visions of Revelations as an elderly man, I wonder if he didn’t recall another part of the verse, which says, “and your old men shall dream dreams.”

            Please read Joel 2:28 and remember:  God loves YOU unconditionally.

Jim