I recently ran into a woman who had been a member of our choir for many years. When we saw each other, we enjoyed a very animated and excited greeting. After the initial excitement of seeing each other again, we got down to the real stuff. She said, "Arthur, I sat there in the choir for twenty years, and time and again I would hear you say that life is a struggle. I remember looking down from my perch and thinking, 'Arthur doesn't know what he's talking about!' But now I am older and I agree and understand." Eventually, we all come to accept the idea that much of life is full of struggle. But when we come to that realization, what can we do about it? Some of us choose to whine, to complain, to fuss and to spend our lives asking why God seems to do bad things to us. Why, why, why, why, why? That kind of thinking gets us nowhere. It's circular, downward thinking that only frustrates us and everyone around us. I have found a simple way to break free from this pattern. It is simply to replace the word "why" with the word "what" when we ask questions. When we do that, we end up with more useful questions: What is going on in the struggle I am facing? What is the reality here? What can I do to improve my situation, my life and the world? What can I do to make my life full and meaningful, so that it counts for something? Those are the questions we need to focus on. And when we do, there's help. We discover an incredible resource and presence called Spirit. What is Spirit? It is a vital, life-changing force. It is a superior presence that gives extraordinary meaning to life. Spirit energizes, motivates and inspires us. Spirit does all these things. Turning to Scripture, we find a wonderful story in the Book of Acts that illustrates the way Spirit works. Early one morning several weeks after the Resurrection, the eleven remaining disciples were in a house together in Jerusalem. Something extraordinary happened, something that forever changed their lives and the lives of so many people over the centuries. A rush of what seemed like a violent wind descended upon the disciples and took them over. It entered their consciousness, took over their psyches and made over their souls. Instantly, they were different. Like never before, they were able to stand tall and speak with authority and clarity. They had new strength and assurance. Something extraordinary and significant had taken place. People noticed that change, and word started getting around the neighborhood. Everyone wanted to know, "What's going on? What has happened to those eleven Galileans?" People began to gather outside their house.  Finally, when many people had assembled, Peter addressed them passionately, in a way he had never been able to speak before. He said, "I'll tell you what's going on. Something significant has happened. We know what it's all about, and we want to let you know about it, too." Peter spoke to them about Joel, the Old Testament prophet. He explained how God had spoken these extraordinary, magnificent, life-changing words to Joel:   I'm going to pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Every human being will be filled with it. I'm giving it away. It's my gift. Your sons and your daughters, they shall prophesy. They're going to be discerning, they're going to be wise. They're going to see the world as it's never been seen before. Your old people, they're going to dream dreams. They're going to get back to their youth again. That phenomenal Spirit power is still alive and present today. That Spirit is in God, who is in us and with us and for us. God wants each one of us to come into our fullness. Through Spirit, He is giving us the blessing and the power so that it might happen. That Spirit is here in this church. I remember the first time I came here, I felt the incredible Spirit that is present here. We do not own this Spirit. It is the Spirit of God. Some Sundays, it feels so overwhelming that it just carries you away. Yet in my very early years here, I didn't pay too much attention its presence in Marble Collegiate Church. After I had already been here a few years, a day finally came when I had an appointment with a woman whose name was unfamiliar to me. Yet when she entered my office, I recognized her as someone who I had often seen in the congregation.  "I've come to say thank you and goodbye. I'm retiring, I'm moving to Florida. But I wanted to tell you my story and something about this church." And she told me an amazing story. She said that one Wednesday before she started coming to services here, she was walking home from work. As she passed by the front doors of this church, something happened to her. Something seemed to come right out from under our front doors, some kind of force, some kind of presence. She said, "I had not been to church in decades, but I knew that I had to come to this church that next Sunday morning." And so she came. And then she came and she came and she came. She told me that before that Wednesday afternoon, her life had been a mess. She was married, but had been a participant in many infidelities. She always had experienced troubles at work, especially with her boss. "But after spending week after week after week in this church," she said, "things began to happen. I straightened out my life. I restored my marriage. I changed my attitude with my boss to the point where we got along well. And now that I'm retiring. I just wanted to thank you." And then she said, "Arthur, Marble Collegiate Church is a spiritual power center. There are not many churches like it. Make sure you protect it and keep it that way." Now you might ask, why should the Spirit of God, which is so strong, need protection? It needs protection because negative forces can sometimes invade and squelch the Spirit. In fact, one of the goals of my ministry has been to let the Spirit happen here, to let the Spirit move through us, to allow the Spirit its freedom here.  I personally know that freedom is necessary if the Spirit is to enter. In my earlier years here, Norman Vincent Peale would sometimes offer me a prayer in his office before I went out to preside at the early morning service and preach my sermon.  Whenever he prayed for me in that way, he would end his prayer with, "Give Art freedom." And as he was saying that, I would think inside, "No, I don't want freedom. I only want to remember what I'm supposed to say." I now understand what Dr. Peale was all about when he prayed for my freedom. He knew that I had to feel free so that the spirit would enter my thoughts and my words. There's a story I like to tell about Thomas Kelly, the remarkable Quaker writer who lived in the middle part of the last century. Thomas Kelly was very deep, very well-centered, very full of spirit, and very practical. He was able to preach and teach in a simple way. On Thomas Kelly's first day of college, one of his professors, a man named Rufus Jones, invited Thomas and a group of other students to dinner at his house so they could get their first experience of what it was like to be college students. Professor Jones later recalled: ?This young man, Thomas Kelly, sat in front of me. With his knees shaking a little bit, he looked me straight in the eye and said, 'I'm going to make a miracle of my life.' And he did." Wherever we are now, we can make that decision too. We can choose to make a miracle of our lives. And how can we do that? Through the presence of the Spirit, the overwhelming Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. It's gigantic, it's enormous, it's free, it's wonderful, it's loving, it's encouraging, it's inspiring, it's energetic. It gives us the freedom to make miracles of our lives, no matter what. Sometimes, to make our miracles happen, we have to work on our relationships. In his book The Seed and the Sower, Laurens Van der Post related a story about two brothers who grew up on a farm in South Africa. One of them, six years older than his younger brother, was good-looking, tall and athletic. He was a good student and was sent to a private school where his capabilities were immediately recognized. He quickly became a leader of the student body, highly respected. The younger brother was not as tall or handsome. In fact, he was a hunchback. But he did have one gift. He had a beautiful singing voice. And it was said of him that he could sing like a nightingale. It happened that the younger brother went off to attend the same private school. And he did well there. One day as the older brother became aware of a commotion outside the window. A group of students had surrounded his brother. They were taunting and teasing him. Finally, one of them ripped off his shirt and exposed his back. It was devastating, utterly demoralizing to the young man. His spirit was completely broken.  He soon returned to his family home, and he even stopped singing.  The older brother felt a tremendous burden of guilt. He could have done something. He was seen as a leader at the school. He could have gone out there and said, "This is my brother. You stop it! Stop it right now!" But he didn't do it. He stayed out of it. And it bothered him. Then during the Second World War, the older brother was a soldier stationed in Palestine. One night as he was lying in his sleeping bag looking up at the stars, his guilt became overwhelming. He knew he had to do something to reconnect with his brother. On the first night when he got back home to South Africa, he and his brother talked late into the night. The older brother confessed what had happened on that day years earlier when he had done nothing to help his brother. He talked about how badly he felt. Would his younger brother forgive him? There were tears and there was an embrace and there was forgiveness. The relationship was healed and the brothers were together again. And the older brother said that as he was going to sleep that night, he heard his brother singing in his room again, like a nightingale. The gift had come back. The Spirit was there. Sometimes, in order for the spirit to touch us, we need to go back and rekindle the spirit of someone else.  Life is difficult and complex. It is a struggle. But with the presence of the magnificent Spirit of God, we have what we need. As we yield to it, we grow and live victorious lives. Let us pray. Wonderful God, you give us the gift of life with its struggles and hardship and complexity. We pray, Lord, that in this day, in this moment, we will yield to the wonder of your Spirit and let You take us into freedom, into joy, into righteousness, into meaningful life. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.