5-15-2020

Good Morning All, 

           Romans 8:27; “And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

     I was watching an old Jimmy Stewart movie the other day titled “Anatomy of a Murder.”   It is based on a true event where a soldier walks into a tavern and kills the owner and then leaves.  The version of events that he and his wife state is that the tavern owner raped the wife one night.  The wife goes home and tells the husband; he loads his pistol, drives down to the tavern, and shoots the tavern owner.  The soldier is acquitted because of something called “irresistible impulse”.  This is like an insanity plea in that the person is unable to resist the impulse to do what he does.  Usually, the person experiences some form of intense emotional upheaval.  The soldier is found not guilty.  It is a good tense movie with some big names and has an ironic twist at the end.

    Throughout the trial, the back and forth was “what was on his mind?”  “What was he thinking?”  “Did he know that what he was doing was wrong?”  The defense and the prosecution went back and forth until a not guilty verdict comes back.  The question came down to how we know what another person is thinking.  How do we know?  We cannot look into their mind or heart and see what their desire is; we can only guess.  So how do we know?

    The deep-down basic truth is that we cannot ever know with 100% certainty what another person is thinking or what their motives are.  There is always some level of uncertainty.  For us as humans we can never be sure, did the man in the movie really know what he was doing, or did he have a hidden reason?    We may never know what someone thinks or feels but God does.

     This can be one of the great comforts in our life.  There may be times in your life when you only know the pain or the sorrow.  You only know the hurt; you do not see any remedy or relief in sight.  You only seek to have the pain relieved.  You seek after God’s grace to heal you.  You may not know how to find it; you only know that you need his love and grace desperately.  We may not know what to say or how to say it, but the Holy Spirit searches our heart and our soul.  He knows our mind and our needs.  He knows how to pray and what to say in these times of pain and sorrow.  With the Spirit’s intercession, God has mercy on us.  With the Spirit’s intercession and cries for mercy for us, God responds with his grace and sends us comfort; he sends us hope.  We are his dear children; he will never fail us.

Father of all grace and mercy, through your great love and mercy we have the comfort of your loving arms surrounding us and lifting us up in times of distress.  You heal us in your great compassion.  Send your knowing and searching Spirit to seek out the hurting, the suffering and the lost.  Heal their pain and bind their wounds.  In the precious name of Jesus our Risen Savior we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret