God Pours Out His Spirit

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.”
Acts 2: 17 (NIV)

          It was January, 1972. I randomly ran into Jim Lovejoy in a grocery store.

We began our friendship when my wife was in the hospital having our third baby. Never one to cook for myself, I ate out often during that time. When Jim heard, he told me he was part of a men’s breakfast group, and invited me to come to a breakfast.

“I have a season pass to ski at Mount Mansfield in Stowe, Jim,” I said, “so I won’t be able to attend a Saturday breakfast.”

Well, wouldn’t you know that January was absolutely snowless; snow-making hadn’t been invented. Days before the Saturday breakfast, Jim called to ask if I was coming.

“No,” I told him, “I’ll be skiing.”

“But there’s no snow,” Jim countered.

“Oh yeah,” I acknowledged and grudgingly agreed to come. I wasn’t happy about it, but I would meet the men at the Holiday Inn in South Burlington on Saturday morning.

The breakfast was three hours long and included all sorts of crazy behavior on the part of the men attending. They were raising their hands and praying! I wasn’t impressed and thought they’d either lost their minds or were faking. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

As soon as the meeting ended, I rushed to put on my parka. All of a sudden, five men approached me.

“Wouldn’t you like to have the Holy Spirit?” they asked.

I could only stutter in response.

“Raise your hands in the air. Ask the Lord for the Holy Spirit to come,” the leader said. All five men laid their hands on me.

BAM! I felt a jolt that left me paralyzed. I was in a state of utter amazement and immobility.

After a half hour, I thought I could drive. I drove home at twenty-five miles an hour. Jim followed to make sure I was okay. At home, I sat on the couch for about two hours to recover from the event.

Thank God, I never recovered! That Saturday prepared me to finally meet Jesus on a Cursillo weekend in 1983. Soon thereafter, I retired from IBM, moved to Naples, Florida, opened a Christian bookstore, and became a member of St. John’s.

Perhaps my running into Jim Lovejoy in a grocery store hadn’t been so random after all.  Jack Bundy