Getting to know the Holy Spirit.

“The Holy Spirit is the personal presence of Jesus in and with the Christian while Jesus is with the Father.”

 
The topic of the Holy Spirit has come up a lot in the last week or so. Coincidentally, it has even been a discussion in my studies. Coincidence? I think not. I’ve been wrestling a lot with the idea of the Holy Spirit and how He works in my life. It has dawned on me that there are many views of the HS and it ranges from one extreme to the next as well everything in between.

 
What has come up though in these conversations is that many of us Christians tend to chase the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives rather than the Giver Himself. We seem to be chasing the supernatural ecstasy moments of what the Holy Spirit does within us. Often this leaves us waiting for the next big church gathering for us to get our “fix”. My struggle with this is that we begin idolising the gifts rather than putting God first. I’ve never had one of those ‘ecstasy moments’ with the Holy Spirit and I always thought I was not a proper Christian because I didn’t fall over the way others did, or laugh uncontrollably or speak in tongues. I mean, there I was, standing in the service, not experiencing any of that, but completely forgetting that I had a knee injury healed by the Holy Spirit through prayer.

 
While I’ve been exploring this idea of who the Holy Spirit is and what He does, I’ve questioned if I’m doing this whole Christian thing wrong. I’ve even questioned God why I haven’t experienced Him like everyone else has. Then the Holy Spirit said something to me, funny how that happens. He said something to me, yes. No, I didn’t fall over and it wasn’t this massive audible voice. It was a impression within me, almost like a deep feeling in my gut. It said, “Why do you need all these big moments when I’m literally with you wherever you go? All you have to do is invite me into everything you do and I’ll show myself to you and through you.” Something inside of me clicked and this whole thing dropped from my head to the heart. I didn’t need to run after these ecstasy moments anymore, I just needed to invite Him into everything I was doing. That way He would do His thing. All I had to do was invite Him into the 98% of my life that wasn’t a church service or Christian event. That way I can experience Him in the everyday mundane.

 
I want to tell you how I have experienced the Holy Spirit in the last few weeks since openly asking Him to join me in my everyday living. There have been moments where I’ve felt these impressions and thoughts within me and in my mind (I know it was Him because Dylan can’t think those thoughts haha, I know myself too well) where He asks me to do something really small. Just this week He said I must go tell someone that God is proud of them for what they are doing and they must keep it up, so I did. It was an ecstatic, thrilling and exciting experience to be in the build-up and in the moment of what Holy Spirit was doing.

 
What I’m trying to get at is that I have gotten to experience Holy Spirit in my everyday life in the smallest of ways. They weren’t extravagant falling over moments. I have just invited Him to take part with me and what I do and He does His thing. You never know what may actually happen, but what I do know is it is going to be exciting. These little moments have become the supernatural for me because they are happening everyday. I get to see, feel and experience these moments everyday, without any effort, and all I have to do is just include Him in my life.

 
The Holy Spirit is personal and He wants to hang out with us. We don’t have to put Him on hold or invite Him to join us only when there is a conference or church service to do the unbelievable. Don’t chase the 2% spaces. Invite Him into the other 98% of your life which is every single day. I promise you, when you do, you see Him work in the mundane, and that begins making every day an extravagant, ecstatic adventure.

In closing, a quote from my study notes that made this more real for me. “The personal presence of Jesus in and with the Christian while Jesus is with the Father.”