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Ideas are poor ghosts until they become incarnate – George Elliot

I have never met Chuck Colson in person. But I do know him through his books. We lost a great warrior this week. I only pray many will step up and fill his slot.

“God spare me from the satisfied life.” Benjamin Mays

Waiting can be agonizing for me. And I think it is for most people. It is difficult for us to not view a period of waiting as a waste of time. But its not. I was thinking this morning of a summer my friend Ronnie Moore and I spent waiting for a trick we had played on his sister to be noticed. It wasn’t just agonizing it was crippling the way we experienced.

We live in a culture where it is hard to believe that waiting is anything more than a waste of time. It’s the in between times that stretch my faith. The time between the promise and the actualizing of the promise is very difficult for most of us. But the Holy Spirit often works that way.

Here’s how the summer of 1967 played out for me and my friend Ron. Ron’s sister Janie had a collection of scarfs. Some were fit for the time other’s looked like something her grandma gave her. She was eighteen and often liked to wear them with flare even during the summer months. We made fun of her sometimes when his parents were gone.

She had one scarf that was known as the Elvis scarf. It had little sequins on it and in rhinestone said, ELVIS. Hence it was called the Elvis scarf. This scarf was never worn. It was beheld in near worship. The story went that this actually was a scarf that Elvis wore at a concert in Las Vegas. And he threw it in the crowd. Whence one of Janie’s best friends reached and snatched it from the crowd. And the next year gave to Janie who was an avid fan of Elvis for Christmas.

Ron and I weren’t so sure it was really an Elvis scarf. We didn’t know because we had never been there before but we suspected you could buy those things in souvenir shops for a few bucks. But Janie claimed there were sweat spots on the scarf, which was proof Elvis had worn it. So not only was the scarf worshipped but the supposed sweat marks as well. When we heard that one we just looked at each other. We were sure it probably wasn’t true and who wants the sweat of a guy from Memphis, Tennessee anyway.

One day about the second week school was out Ron and I were bored and came up with an idea. “Let’s steal Janie’s Elvis scarf,” Ron said. “Yah let’s hide it from her and make her buy it back, “ I jumped in.

So when we knew that Janie had gone off to the lake with some friends we stealthy slipped into her room and found the scarf. She kept way back in her underwear drawer. It was uncomfortable for a couple thirteen year olds to be rifling through his sister’s undies but it had to be done.

As we planned I took the scarf home and hid it under my bed. And we waited.

We hadn’t thought that it was summer and Janie wouldn’t likely be warring any of her scarves. It was awful. Day after day went by as we waited for our joke on her to evolve. The longer we waited the greater our anticipation grew.

We ended upon waiting until the first day of school the next fall before it was noticed by Janie that the scarf had vanished. I wasn’t there. But Ron reported that Janie reached into the back of her undies drawer to take a look at her prize. And when she felt nothing there she screamed out, “SOMEONE STOLE ELVIS!”

Ron was a good actor. So he stood his ground when he was accused of stealing it. He didn’t really lie because it was me who took the scarf out foo the drawer.

We were afraid to face the music. Btu what joy was ours for a plan that finally found fruition. We got her! She had no Elvis and we escaped blame. Ron’s parents probably didn’t believe him but what can you do without hard evidence. We decided trying to sale it back to her was a bad idea. But we knew the longer the search went on the more likely it would be that things would lead back to our direction again as the culprits.

So we decided to take the scarf and hide it under the passenger side of her mother’s car with the end slightly sticking out so it would be discovered. And according to our plan it was. And Janie got in trouble for blaming her brother for her irresponsibility of leaving the scarf under the seat for the spring and summer.

The wait was a tremendous agony. It was a troubled summer waiting for what we knew was going to happen.

I find that the Holy Spirit often requires a long wait. He told his disciples to go and wait for the coming of the Spirit. They waited ten days. This doesn’t seem long. But it is if you have taken time off work, and your are not sure just exactly what was going to happen.

And the wait was over at an unusual time as well. The Spirit came at 9 o’clock a.m.
And a real party broke loose.

I have also wondered what heart turmoil the hearts of the women who discovered Jesus wasn’t in the tomb must have gone through. They had had a horrid Good Friday as we called it. Then it was crucifixion day. And the Bible says they had to wait until the Sabbath was over to bring spices to embalm Jesus’s body (Luke 23:56).

It’s Saturday But Sunday’s Coming

There are many in between times in the Bible. Again by that we mean the time between the promise and actualizing the promise. The in between time builds our hearts and prepares us for the power of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit.

Moses had a forty-year in between time between his call and the release of his call at the burning bush. It must have been a confusing time for him. He knew he was called to lead Israel out but probably felt cast aside after his futile attempt to do it in his own strength.

The Israel’s too had a forty-year trek through the desert before they saw the promise land. Joshua and Caleb waited anxiously to taste of the good land they had seen forty years earlier. There in between time must have been a challenge.

Rehab the harlot must of wondered if the Israelite spies would really make sure she was spared. What a relief that must have been when the Israelite armies saw the purple cord and spared her family. Her trust had paid off.

Peter must have anguished in his betrayal for three days and the forty more days before the he found the Lord was raised from the dead. Peter in his shame felt responsible for the death of his friend he thought was the Messiah. What had gone wrong? Why wasn’t he as strong as he thought?

For all of them it was Saturday but Sunday was coming!!!

God can definitely throw a great party. But he knows how to spoil one too.

“We don’t even know how to blush,” Jeremiah spoke of his true.

And how that is true of our day. One of the under bellies of raw post-modernism is the
break down of authoritative values. The aim of much that goes on as well as the source is our loss of modesty. I think a goal of our media culture and most cultural driving forces today is to obliterate blushing all together.