A Sneeze Here, A Cough There

                   

 “Here we go again,” I thought, as I discovered my third of five children was coming down with a cold in less than a week.   While I was hoping the rest of us would not catch it, it seemed like an impossible likelihood.  The “germ” had been vicious and would undoubtedly catch each of us one by one and then possibly start over.  As I changed the soiled sheets in an effort to contain the germs, my mind seemed to wander in a seemingly irrational way trying to make sense of the whole mess. 

As my mind meandered in its own weird direction, somewhere the line, “a sneeze here, a cough here, everywhere a sniff, sniff” bounced through.  But as I continued to consider the situation I found myself focusing on the thought “If we could spread God’s message the way we spread colds!”

         Colds seem to catch everyone no matter how hard we try to contain them.  We teach our youngsters to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze to minimize the spread of germs but those little animals still manage to get the best of us.  Wouldn’t it be exciting if God’s word spread with such a small amount of effort?  Aren’t we supposed to let our light shine?  Yet, we hesitate. We often “cover our mouth” as we contain God’s word within us.  We keep it to ourselves instead of sharing, unlike our innate ability to share tiny bits of information about our most recent shopping trip or fashion we’ve just discovered, or information about a neighbor down the street or even the latest information on a sports event we just witnessed.  All this information seems worthy of excitement and sharing, but not the guide for life we have within our hearts!

         Sometimes we feel inadequate to share.  Memorization is an important element of sharing scripture and it seems hard as we try, memorizing scripture verbatim is a huge obstacle.  Even when our memory allows us the ability of paraphrase, recalling the location within the Bible, is even more daunting.  Since, quoting scripture is an obstacle, we don’t feel we have the ability to witness.  Besides, isn’t it our minister’s place to share God’s word?  He’s been trained for it! 

         As Christians, however, we have power in the Spirit to witness even if we aren’t professional ministers. When we call on the Spirit, God will guide our thoughts and not fail us when we take an opportunity to let others know about His love and grace, even when we’re not sure of what to say.

         Still, Satan is going to be around the corner waiting for us to fall on our face using our doubts to mangle thoughts within us, making us afraid.  Once he’s succeeded the first time, he knows our vulnerability and will use the same ruse again and get stronger with each failure.  So it is paramount to face our fears, placing them at Christ’s feet knowing God has given us the ability to share his message.  It may not be from a pulpit, but rather through a listening ear, kind word, smile, gesture or giving aid to someone who least expects it, like the Good Samaritan did for the Jew. 

God knows our hearts.  When fear, timidity, and apprehension stand to overwhelm us, we can call on the Spirit to capture our weakness, enabling us to spread His word.  God’s return is perilously close.  While we wait with patient hope we must reach others.  It’s true, “a sneeze here, a cough there, everywhere a sniff, sniff…” and you’ll soon have a room full of people with colds.  It’s also true, “a touch shared here, a thought shared there, everywhere a prayer, prayer….” And you’ll soon have a world full of hearing and sharing God’s word.