Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
Filled, and Then Singing
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Paul names drunkenness and handles it in a few words. What being filled looks like, he goes on to spell out at length.
He tells them to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and songs from the Spirit, to sing and make music from the heart to the Lord, to thank God the Father for everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to give way to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Most of that list needs another person in it. You can’t speak to one another by yourself. Giving way takes a man across from you who wanted the same thing you wanted. Thanking God the Father is different, and a man can do it by himself in a parking lot. Paul sets it down in the middle of the company anyway, in a room where people can hear a man do it.
He is usually the loudest thing in that shop. He knows everybody’s kids by name, he gets the punchline wrong on purpose, and he has an opinion about your boots before you have finished setting them on the counter. Today he has said about a dozen words, and four of them were about the weather.
On a day like that, an instruction about drunkenness does nothing for a man with glue on his fingers. The rest of the sentence hands him people. That asks more of him than being left alone with a rule, and it is also nearer.
None of it waits for him to feel better first. He can sing badly. He can thank God for one thing and not feel much while he does it. When a woman comes in with a boot split along the seam, he asks after her mother before he takes it from her, and the asking is real work on a day when he had to make himself do it.
Around four a woman comes in for shoes she dropped off in August, and he finds them in nine seconds and acts like he has performed a miracle. She tells him he has not changed a bit. He walks her out to her car and stands in the doorway a minute after she is gone.
A Prayer to Remember
Today went badly from about ten in the morning on, and I have kept it to myself since, which suits me fine. Put somebody in front of me before tonight. Give me a reason to sing something in the car, even badly, and let me thank you for one thing I can name without having to go looking for it.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
