This week we celebrate Pentecost Sunday when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-21). The Holy Spirit offers us freedom - firstly from ourselves - when Beethoven (at 32) realised that he would be deaf for the rest of his life he prayed 'Oh God give me the strength to be victorious over myself, for nothing may chain me to this life'. There is freedom from others. Miller H Caldwell asked for grace to listen to people without always feeling that he should give his opinion. He prayed 'Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs.with my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all', There is freedom from external circumstance: George Bernard Shaw said 'the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man'. These freedoms leave us able to 'glorify God and to enjoy him forever'. Paul wrote 'I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity (Philippians 4:11).

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