Inspired
If you want to win people over, you have to do your homework.
Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” - Acts 17:22-31
Paul took the time to go around Athens and discover the many altars and objects of worship the people had set up for their Gods.
I imagine him scratching his head and wondering, how am I going to convince these people to abandon all these gods and believe in the one true God?
What Paul came up with was brilliant. This unknown god you worship is the one I want to tell you about.
I, Paul, will enlighten you about the one you seek to know more about.
I don't think Paul came up with that idea on his own. I believe the Holy Spirit guided him.
The Spirit is our inspiration, our enlightening force, making the unclear, clear, the unknown, known.
If we, like Paul, rely on God's Holy Spirit to direct our thoughts and actions, we, too, will come up with clarity among the chaos.
This morning ritual I go through, reading the Daily Office and looking for God's guidance, is how I try to tap into the Holy Spirit.
By starting my day connected to God, I can rest assured that I will be receptive to any help He chooses to send me all day long.
It's easy, and it works.
In all I do, I feel inspired.
More to come...