"SOMETHING IN MY BEDROOM"

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2:2)

The late radio talk show host Jerry Williams used to often dramatically announce on air, “There’s SOMETHING in my BEDROOM!”.  In Jerry’s case, he has respiratory problems which were at their very worst in his bedroom.  When things got bad enough, his on air voice would be raspy.  In his later years, Jerry was becoming more and more phobic of germs and was more and more often heard to announce, “There’s SOMETHING in my BEDROOM!”.

A couple of weeks ago, a 23-year-old young man essentially announced, “There’s SOMETHING in my BEDROOM!”, but what was happening in his bedroom was something wonderful from God!   Since I don’t have specific permission from the family to use their names (although I doubt they’d mind) I’m going to use fictitious names. I’ll call the young man “Steve” and his parents “Dave and Melissa”.  Dave is the pastor of a medium sized church in central Massachusetts.  His son has completed a little over a year of college.  Steve was working three part time jobs and was excited about the hip-hop group he was part of.  Within the past few months, he’d broken up with his girlfriend and the hip-hop group had begun to disintegrate.  Steve was wrestling with what God’s purpose for his life might be.

One day just a couple of weeks ago, his mother arrived home in the late afternoon.  She entered the house and smelled the savory smell of delicious Italian tomato sauce. Steve had been cooking some good stuff.  (I forgot to mention these folks are all Italian-Americans who appreciate good cooking!)  Melissa began looking for Steve and calling him.  Suddenly, there was Steve walking toward her with a very intense look on his face.  Melissa became very alarmed.  Two years earlier, a close friend of Steve’s had died, and that’s the last time she’d seen such a look on Steve’s face.

“Steve, what’s WRONG?!”  Melissa asked.

To her amazement Steve replied, “Mom, there’s NOTHING wrong, but I’ve got to tell you, The Holy Spirit is in my room!”

Melissa and her daughter walked to the bedroom with Steve.   Upon entering the room, Melissa experienced what she could only describe as a “thick presence of the Holy Spirit”.   For some of you for whom such a thing is completely foreign, I’ll say it could probably be described as a very definite and awesome supernatural presence.  Melissa and her daughter dropped to their knees in prayer and worship.  

About two hours earlier, after Steve began simmering the homemade sauce on the stove, he went into his bedroom and began writing a hip-hop song.  As he wrote, he began writing beautiful Christian lyrics.  The more he wrote, the more he sensed the presence of The Holy Spirit, and he then began to worship the Lord and enjoy this wonderful experience.  Melissa, who had always been critical of the “holy laughter” movement in some churches (as I have been) was startled in that she began laughing joyfully and almost uncontrollably.  This went on for almost an hour.  Her husband Dave arrived a short time later to find that his family had experienced what I suppose we could call a “Book of Acts” experience.

Steve quit his jobs and has just started as a student at Zion Bible College in Rhode Island.  He is enjoying this change in his life.  I started Bible College about a year younger than he is now back in 1977.  No, I didn’t have one of those “Holy Spirit in my room” experiences, but I do remember the same sense of peace and being in God’s will.

I often tell our church people that “God has so much for us”.  He really does, but we have to be open.  We have to quiet ourselves, listen to God deep in our spirits, and get away from the radios, television sets, and (yes) the computers and all the rest of it.  We also need NOT to “empty our minds” as mystical cults advise, but rather we need to FOCUS our minds on the Lord (as Steve did when he was writing the Christian song lyrics).  No, we should not try to duplicate the experience of this central Massachusetts family.  God may meet with some of us in very different ways, but if we’ll be open to the Lord, there’s no telling what He might do!