I haven't written for so long, I feel like there is rust in my brain. But I have to share that lately I have been having a Pentecost experience. I have been focusing once more on allowing the Holy Spirit to change my life instead of me and my ideas.
For a long time I have purposely avoided "the Spirit's leading" as I grew up traditionally knowing it-primarily an emotional roller coaster ride.
When I was a kid, the Holy Ghost - as he was referred to in the country churches I attended - was a constant focus. Without that focus you are taking away my childhood experience of God.
And I had such faith that the Spirit was there. I didn't question his existence at all.
My experience of him was as real as my experience of my family. He was there in every heartfelt song, in strong conviction of sin and in tears of joy.
25 years later and I still believe. But it's different. I've lived a little longer and have experienced more than I did when I was living in the protective bubble my parents formed around me. I've strayed more frequently throughout those years than I ever planned to stray.
I've also learned that emotions aren't everything- that every tug on my heart strings isn't necessarily the Holy Spirit. That every twinge of guilt isn't genuine conviction of sin. That every firm stance I take isn't necessarily backed by the Holy Spirit, no matter how morally right I may be.
I look back on my childhood and see the evidence of the Holy Spirit in my life. I also see the evidence of times when I was just being controlled or influenced by a crowd mentality and doing what everyone else around me was doing.
There were many God fearing people in my life but there were also many who just feared man. They made statements like "If you aren't feeling anything right now maybe you need to come to the altar" or "If you cannot praise God right now maybe you had better examine your relationship with God because that is all you are going to be doing for eternity in heaven".
I would guess that most of the congregation, like myself, didn't examine the motivation behind those statements. I frequently accepted whatever was said as the voice of God. I didn't see that many of those statements were because people were focused on being like others, being viewed as holy or on making everyone alike so everyone could feel comfortable. It wasn't really about "hindering" the work of the spirit. Sometimes it was about making emotions our God.
And at times the emotions were a genuine effect of the Spirit's presence.
I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit and I do believe that he is more real today than I ever did before. And my view of him has changed. I will never fully understand his mystery until I see face to face. But I know now that he speaks in many ways and he never uses manipulation. He doesn't need to. He doesn't force his power, his comfort on us. He offers it. And he waits for us to listen, he doesn't barge his way into our hearts.
In short, I have learned that the Holy Spirit may use my emotions but he isn't chained to them. He works with my intellect, my power of reasoning. Then again, there are times he works purely through my emotions, impressing something on my heart more than once until I finally decide it is He who speaks. Sometimes he leads me to do what I think is perfectly rational and other times He leads me to do what I think is just plain crazy.
He isn't very predictable. We cannot put him in our religious box and say that this group or that group is wrong. He is the lifeblood of the body. If we belong to Christ, we commune with His Spirit. And that doesn't require we be stoic. It doesn't require we be super-emotional. It doesn't require that we are Baptist or Pentecostal.
The only requirement is that we follow him. Not our own emotions, desires or the emotions and desires of others. That we stop and give him the lead in all we do. And that is different for everyone.
I don't know about you, but I'm glad I do not have to be in uniformity to follow the spirit. I just have to be in unity with the body of Christ.
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