POWER-LIKE A STRONG, DRIVING WIND!

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 43, 3 June 1965, Page 10

POWER-LIKE A STRONG, DRIVING WIND!

Last Saturday was the occasion of the anniial house-to-house appeal for Corso funds, says the I Rev. I. H. Robertson in | this week's Voiee of the Churches. Reports so far indicate that the total sum raised throughout the country will be higher than any previous year, except perhaps the first year of the worldwide "Freedom from Hunger" campaign. Until this year, the res- ! ponse to successive annual appeals in this "Freedom from Hunger" campaign had progressively diminished as the initial impact of S the campaign wore off. It would be interesting to know why this year the appeal met with a better response. I wonder if it conld he in part, dne to a demonstration in deeds that tliose, who lOver recent weeks liave protested against inereased military action in Vietnam and have proposed inereased ecoivomic aid as a more positive ,step towards peaee and harmony between the nations of the world, really mean whai they say. Whether or not there is any connection between the two, it is obvious from the response to last Saturday's collection that the people of New Zealand do take seriously the challenge to

, care about those who "have-not" in the world. To tnose who would ask, "Where is the evidence of God working in the world today?" I would answer that in this and other similar practical ways. the. spirit .of liove and earing coneern is at work in our midjst. In the Christian Church next Sunclay is observed as Whitsunday, celebrating the day the Church began,. when the power of the Holy Spirit was- demonstrated in the lives of ordinary people. It was described by those present as being "like a strong, driving wind." The spirit of God or the Holy Spirit has always been cleseribed as a wind or breath. In fact the word spirit comes from the Latin word meaning to breathe; hence breath or wind. Jesus once said, "The wind blows where it wills; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know Avhere it eomes from or where it is going. So with everyone who is born from spirit." (John 3:8 N.E.B.). We can see and hear the effect the wind has on things and even though we cannot see it we know the wind is real and has some power. We do not, for instance, attribute the movement of trees to a source of power within the

trees themselves, simply because we can only see the effect of the wind and not the wind itself. In the same way we "see God" by the effect "He" has on people, and we should also expect evidence of a spirit of earing concern to be the effect of God upon people's lives. It is the demonstrations of concern for others to the point of giving something which is part of our very self, of which Saturday's collection is but one small incident, ithat is evidence of the power of God in the world today. It cannot be said that this- spirit is confined to the Church alone, any more than it can be said that it is only from socallecl Christian homes that support for such appeals as Corso comes. This spirit is at work in the world in many ways, though not always distinguishable as peculiarly religious activity.