Taking baby steps with the Holy Spirit, part 2

By Linda

This is the second of a two-part series on lessons learned about the Holy Spirit by one long-term ANCT field worker

When I had been out of university for a few years, a number of us moved as a team to the Middle East with a three-year commitment. It became my home for 11 years. As I left last year I felt so rich — rich in relationships and life — feeling that I have lived my dream in so many ways. I especially felt so thankful that I got to experience aspects of God through the Holy Spirit in the past few years!

Here are some things about the Holy Spirit that I have been learning the past few years and still have to be regularly reminded of:

·        God still speaks! We sometimes get it right and sometimes we don’t. When we are unsure, we get to trust in His character.

·        God speaks corporately – we need the Body of Christ to help us hear, discern and to confirm his voice.

·        When He speaks, it comes with clarity and peace.

·        He can speak when He wants to, but He doesn’t have to entertain us. It does require though for us to wait on Him and be ready to listen when He does speak. 

·        There is no junior Holy Spirit – little ones have the ability to encounter the Holy Spirit in a very real way. We don’t have to dumb it down, and also need to be cautious to not see their encounters with Him as ‘cute,’ but rather powerful.

·        The Holy Spirit is like a dove that sits on one’s shoulder, where one wants to walk in a way that the dove doesn’t fly away.  We get to steward His presence, by abiding, being sensitive to Him and walking in obedience. When we fail, we have the invitation to repent and surrender, instead of striving and trying to fix ourselves. 

·        I recently heard Brandon Jones sharing about the Celtic Christians that used to explain the Spirit as a wild goose, as He can be wild and unpredictable. He can surprise and at the same time also disturb our plans. As Graham Cooke says, He is constant, but so unpredictable. He is never boring.

·        He really knows how to lead! Lord, teach us to follow You well.

·        Even (or is it especially) to the most marginalized, neglected and despised people God says: ‘I deem you worthy – worthy that My Spirit can reside in you.’ I have watched young women in the Middle East who are from communities who are frowned upon, come to faith and be filled with His Spirit! He doesn’t disqualify them – on the contrary, He ‘shows off’ His glory to the ‘superior ones’ as He lives in them and transforms them, and teaches the ‘wise’ through the despised. 

·        We need His Spirit in us and also upon us – not only for our sake, but especially so that others will come to experience and follow Him too.

·      The philosophy of Disciple Make Movements (DMM) that includes Discovery Bible Studies (DBS) and much more are great mindsets and methods that lay a big foundation for how God is bringing people groups to Himself these days. But if we take out the leading and the work of the Spirit, we have but an empty, dead way of doing ministry. As we know, his mathematics works different… 1+1 doesn’t equal 2. 

·      Having the Holy Spirit in us and on us came at a huge price! It cost Jesus His all. It wasn’t only for our sin, shame and fear that Jesus died and rose again. The whole plan from the beginning was that Jesus would give it all, redeem us and sanctify us as worthy ‘temples’ where He could dwell – basically to come and incarnate Himself in us by means of His Spirit – that the glory of the Lord would cover the earth as He brings His kingdom, as it is in Heaven upon the earth!

Remember the parable of the talents, where two of them worked hard to multiply what was given to them, and the other one buried his? I always heard it in sermons in the context of being good stewards with our abilities, talents and material belongings. Until we did a DBS a few years back, and our friend suggested that the ‘talents’ were referring to the Holy Spirit. 

We so often look at what others have received, how it seems that they have been given much more of the Holy Spirit than us. As a result, it is so easy to ‘bury’ what we have received, like that one guy. The power of this story though is, that the more we use it, the more we will get. As we ask for more of His Spirit, He promised He will give it to us, because He is that good father. The more we act in faith on those inklings we get – sometimes without full clarity or perfection - the more we will receive of His Spirit!