30 Aug The Holy Spirit

For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. (Galatians 6:8 NKJV)

There are so many stories I could tell you about my adventures with the Holy Spirit. I could tell you about the times He’s spoken to me during devotional readings, or ministered through me to others in my church. Or the time He expressed joy through my friend and I in the form of non-stop laughter. Out of the Trinity, I believe the Holy Spirit was the first Person of God that I really came to know intimately. In my first year of regular church attendance, as I slowly began to open my heart to God, I would cry and weep during every worship service, without fail. I wasn’t sad. My body was responding to the overwhelming presence of the Shekinah, the glory of God in the Person of the Spirit.

And yet writing about the Holy Spirit seems to be the most challenging. He’s described in scripture as ‘wind’ or a ‘river’ or ‘light’. Can you put wind in a box? Can you explain the shape of water to someone? Can you hold light to examine its qualities? Instead, the Holy Spirit has to be experienced.

He hates to be ‘quenched’, that terrible moment when we choose to listen to our flesh – our minds and wills and desires and physical longings – without submitting to His leading. He hates to be grieved when we choose legalism over the powerful, all-sufficient grace of the gospel. 

A worship service is empty and dry without that river, that light, that wind of His Presence. And yet we have no means to manufacture His Presence. In fact, the more we try to recreate ‘a spiritual atmosphere’ from our own efforts, the more we press into legalism and works, reaping corruption of the flesh. He comes when we wait for Him to. And when He does, there’s no mistaking, there’s no forgetting, that river, that light, that powerful wind that leaves nothing that it touches unchanged.

Exercise

Dear friend, when was the last time you just waited with expectation for the voice of His Presence? Without your own agenda, allowing Him to say whatever He wants to say, to do whatever He wants to do? If it’s been too long, I encourage you to do a small exercise today:

1. First, clear your cluttered mind by journaling or free-writing.
2. Set a timer for 5 minutes
3. Sit in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed (this could even be a bathroom at desperate times!)
4. Open your hands out and close your eyes.
5. Pray: Lord, I’m here. Then wait quietly.
6. In your heart, submit to waiting for Him to move or speak as He wants to.

If after the timer goes off you haven’t experienced the Spirit, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You can acknowledge and respect His choice not to show up without taking it personally. You exercised submission and desire and that’s all that is required from you. Perhaps He was delighting in you without your knowing it! When it comes to the Holy Spirit, we are asked not to try figure Him out. The wind comes and goes where it wishes, without our understanding.

Kate Walsh

Kate is the current owner and editor of Cup of Faith. She is a blogger who loves Jesus, loves to read, and currently lives in Johannesburg with her husband.