Sunday, August 23
Common Witness
Paul could always be
counted on for an engrossing
testimony. With his life ever
on the cutting edge of the sword
of the Spirit, each journey was
filled with melodramatic deliv-
erance and breathtaking ex-
amples of the power and love of
God. Pagans were converted
in the most improbable circum-
stances, and churches seemed
to rise from out of the citadels
of Satan. Little wonder that
packed houses shouted praise
to God whenever he spoke to
the believers back in the home
churches.
Our praise is more muted to
the testimony. We all like a
good pot-boiler that turns on a
moving deliverance from drug
addiction, or a harrowing con-
version of cannibals who had
other plans than eating the
Bread of Life, but such tales
simply make good stories for
us, and we often feel more like
applause than praise. For that
matter, most of us have a story
or two of our own—an evil
past now long forsaken, a near
accident, an answered
prayer—but that was awhile
back. Not much has happened
recently.
We would all love to have
the testimony of an apostle.
When our daydreams take a
spiritual turn, we fancy the de-
termined stand, held against
the fires of persecution, or the
word of power, converting the
multitudes and healing the
infirmed. That, hopefully, is
. our testimony for the future,
but today, we had to study for
a test, make a living, or take
the kids to the doctor. To-
by Dayton Flick
morrow will probably be the INTRO-
same.
Yet power and praise need D UCTION
not depend upon blood-and- cripture:
thunder. Our ordinary lives eral 19,
are filled with the miraculous
and the divine. When we are
really alert—when we are not
merely slouching through the
day toward quitting time and
TV dinners, but living in an
awareness that each moment is
a choice, each day a deci-
sion—we are provided a testi-
mony of the power of God,
working in a life such as is
common to humankind. With
our blindness evaporated we
can see that in the intruding
question of a child, in the exas-
perating job well handled, or
in our myriad of relationships
with those around us, resides
victory or defeat, testimony or
lesson. We have no power ex-
cept the power we exercise to
make it through the day.
We grow weary thinking of
such responsibility. We would
rather dress for success, dis-
cuss the possibilities, and at-
tend another seminar. But the
testimony of Paul began a day
at a time, in those long years
that followed Damascus, before
he became the “apostle to the
Gentiles.” In the fleeting trivial
moments of each day, Paul
grew in the power of God into a
character that could impact
the lives of millions.
Our lives may yet tell
greater things. But the testi-
mony of today can be a glory
to God, or it may be another
witness to self-defeat. His
glory depends upon the decision
of the moment.
Dayton Flick is a free-lance writer living in Angwin, California.
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