Water Lillies

I will pour out my Spirit on all people...

Your young men will see visions,

your old men will dream dreams.

Acts 2:17

Water lilies always make me think of lily pads.  Lily pads make me think of big green frogs.  Big green frogs on lily pads make me think of princesses.  Princesses with big green frogs on lily pads make me think of kissing – a correlation that just should not happen!  I, like most other little girls, dreamed of being a princess when I was small, but somehow the thought of kissing a frog never quite appealed to me as part of the fantasy.  I had better things to dream about than that!

After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the disciples were waiting in Jerusalem for the promised Comforter.  When the Spirit descended with flowing wind and tongues of fire flowing through their hearts, they all began speaking in other languages – a confusion of noise that attracted the God-fearing Jews who had gathered “…from every nation under heaven.”  Parthians, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, Cretans, and Judeans exclaimed, “We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongue!”

Others, however, thought it was tremendously funny, and spread the rumor that the men were just drunk.  Peter stood before the crowds of people, stating that the phenomenon they were witnessing was a fulfillment of the Prophet Joel’s words quoted above. As the Gospel spread from nation to nation and sea to sea – the vision and dreams of God’s people carried the flame to every corner of the world.  That work is still with us today, and it is our Spirit-inspired dreams that fuel our witness to the world.