Conduit



            Some people get music earworms, you know, that song that will not leave your thoughts. I get those but I also get vocabulary earworms, a word that persists in my thoughts, I roll it around in my mind and consider it from different angles.
            The word rolling around in my head the last day or two has been the word conduit. Years ago, when I worked in a factory conduit was a large spool of flexible, jointed, metal tubing through which wires passed from a motor to a large exhaust fan. The tubing protected the wiring from outside elements.
 After getting away from factory work I saw conduit as a pathway from one entity to another, it didn’t have to be a mechanical thing; conduit now took on some spiritual meaning. I now identified the Holy Spirit as the conduit of my faith; he is my pathway to God. I love the fact and I am reliant on it too; that when I cannot formulate the words to pray the Holy Spirit speaks for me in groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:25-27 ‘But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”
Today is Christmas Eve and Jesus is our obvious conduit to salvation. We celebrate his birth with all kinds of festivities and traditions. As I contemplated this, the word conduit morphed into can do it. I imagine Jesus speaking with the Father before taking on this most important task, the salvation of all mankind, and saying, “Yes Dad, I can do it.”  Then I consider his words in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will but your will be done.”  How many situations have I gotten myself into thinking I can do it, only to pray later God help me? It comforts me to know that Jesus also asked God for help, ultimately doing the Father’s will.
We too, as Christians, are God’s conduit to the world. Will we say I can do it or will we ask God to take the task from us? We can be the protective covering for others as they find their way to the true source of power; we do this by loving the unlovable, caring for the forgotten, being friends to the friendless, and demonstrating God’s love in any practical way.
Merry Christmas!
Matthew 19:26  “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

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