Getting It

Before reading further, pause for a moment and think about some specific encounters you’ve had with the Holy Spirit.

…

In her autobiography, Helen Keller detailed her first connection between a word and the object: 

"As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she [her teacher] spelled into the other hand the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that W-A-T-E-R meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand..."

At this moment when she was seven years old, Helen’s understanding of water was limited to “the wonderful cool something that was flowing over” her hand.

At the moment we’ve encountered the Holy Spirit, we can easily limit our understanding to, “This is God and this is how He moves.”

But Helen grew in her understanding of water and learned that it was something in a glass, or a mug, or a tub, or something that fell from the sky, or something that can be swallowed. Helen’s life would have been much more difficult if she had closed her mind to further revelation of what water is.

We need to grow in our understanding of how the Holy Spirit moves and works in us and through us. Primarily, we need to accept the fact that we don’t know all there is to know about how God moves.

To help us better understand the Holy Spirit, Jesus used the analogy of wind:

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit arrived in the upper room and His presence created the sound from a mighty wind:

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”

We must never believe that we’ve got God all figured out. Wind in a box ceases to be wind.

For example, in many churches, the healing part of the service occurs after the preaching. Those that need a healing stand at the front of the church and the leaders of the church lay hands on each person and pray the prayer of faith. Week in and week out, this procedure is followed religiously. We’ve got the technique down, we’ve got God figured out. He’s supposed to heal everyone at times like these. Everyone is content; everyone is comfortable with this routine.

One Sunday, a relatively unknown preacher comes to teach. Before he opens his Bible to begin teaching, he unexpectedly invites anyone who wants a healing to come forward. After the crowd of dozens of people gather at the front of the church, the preacher pauses. Then he looks at one specific person, walks over to her, and spits in her eye. While the woman is screaming, he tells everyone else to go back to their seats.

Needless to say, the congregation is shocked and ready to kick him out of town. After all, he broke at least four of the “ways that God does stuff”: he did the healing service first, he didn’t invite leaders of the church to help, he approached only one person, and he told everyone else to go back to their seats without praying for them. But something happened, the woman who was blind can now see!

But this is simply a Biblical example of one of the ways that God does His thing, yet we’d be shocked if it actually happened in our church!

Jesus walked into a crowd of people who were expecting a healing and He healed only one of them (John 5:1–9) and He healed a blind man by spitting on his eyes (Mark 8:22–26).

What that unknown preacher did was Biblical, yet would make most of us very uncomfortable. But God—like water is more than something cool on Helen Keller’s hand—is far more than our current understanding and He does things far differently than our limited expectations. Wind outside of a box continues to be wind.

It is my prayer for you that Father will continue to help you to hear His voice, and more and more frequently.

With God’s grace and in His peace,

Gary

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Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

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