This week I read a fascinating story, and instead of embellishing it, I want to just read it to you as it is.

It's an eyewitness of this particular story, of this true story, and this is how he puts it.

He said, a baby rabbit fell into a quarry and concrete mixing machine yesterday and came out in the middle of the

concrete block.

Yet that rabbit had the strength of digging its way free before the concrete block set in.

He said, this eyewitness continues.

He said, that tiny creature was scooped up with 30 tons of sand,

then was swirled and pounded through the entire mixing process.

With the mixture of cement, sand, and water, that rabbit carried on on a conveyor belt type of thing, and from there, that rabbit was swept

into the machine that pounded that concrete into blocks by a pressure of 100 pound per square inch.

Finally, the blocks were ejected on a dry floor as the dazed rabbit clawed itself free.

And the eyewitness said, we picked him up, cleaned him up, and dried him, and he hopped away.

Now, there are so many people who live their lives just like that rabbit in the story.

So many people feel that they are caught up in the big machine of life.

So many people feel that they are being pounded and swirled with their circumstances.

So many people live feeling that they're just going through life so dazed and so disoriented

and disappointed and discontented in life.

So many people feel that they are barely making it from one day to the next.

But I know and you know that this kind of life is not what Jesus intended for his disciples to live.

You know and I know that this is not the abundant life that Jesus

promised his followers. This is not the meaningful, purposeful, and significant life that he promised us.

And that is why he gave us the Holy Spirit. But here's the problem. When our lives are lived with that

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