I go looking of the lost God.
The one I can’t quite remember, the faceless One, Him all immaterial, the One named “breath,” all wind and all moving.
I think I know the Father, the One scanning the horizon and then the sandals slapping sand, the running open-armed and wild towards the prodigal come home.
I think I know the Son, the one with the scar punctured palms, with the kiss of Grace on His lips, with the side speared right through, the New Adam giving me a new rib, a new birth, a new hope.
But the Spirit, the one who penetrates the skin and the thinking, the God personality Who comes to live within the embodied personalities, Spirit penetrating spirit, the Comforter, the illuminator of all things spiritual, the filling-God inflating souls power-full, what of Him do I know?
For days, I think of this. We may know about and never truly know.
I breathe it, in and out, in and out: “Where are you, Breath God? Where are you?” I know He knows my groans.
I look for Him. Feel along my days for that “Spirit of life… a boundless sea of fire, flowing, moving ever, performing as He moves the eternal purposes of God.” After emptying the bowls, the emptying of plates and the filling of the hungry, The Farmer finds our place in Revelations and when he reads it, I ask him to read that one line again, again, and I carry about John’s words, a stone I keep polishing with the murmuring: “It was Sunday and I was in the Spirit.”
I was in the Spirit. What is that? What is that? I realize how hungry I am.
Late under stars, the window open to the night thick and cooling, I pick up a random book from the bedstand stack, one I haven’t yet cracked, a classic of A.W. Tozer’s
“Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught… If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit.”
I fall asleep thinking how “a man can receive nothing” — not wisdom, not discernment, not strength, not happiness — nothing — “except it be given him from heaven.” (John 3:27) I fall asleep thinking of Pentecost days away and wanting this: to be a disciple, to stay in Jerusalem, to wait for the gift that comes down from heaven, wait for the One gift that gives everything else.
The orchard is still while I string out sleeves and pant legs and they flap in mid-May morning. I imagine it, the animation by wind, the flying. When they, all the sons, bicker loud in the garden, us pulling weeds, pulling out family roots, I beg for wind, plead for the Spirit. Wiping off the last counter in sinking day, the shoulders slumped and the sense of failure rising, I pray His promise with the waiting men, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”
The light of the fire ball streams across the table.
There is heat and it enlivens and the open mouths of the tulips blaze like “cloven tongues as of fire.” Is this what it is to be a daughter of the Consuming Flame?
I too part the lips.
“We may be sure of one thing, that for our deep trouble there is not cure apart from a visitation, yes, an invasion of power from above.
Only the Spirit Himself can show us what is wrong with us and only the Spirit can prescribe the cure.
Only the Spirit can save us from the numbing reality of Spiritless Christianity.
Only the the inworking of the Spirit’s power can discover to us the solemn majesty and the heart ravishing mystery of the triune God.” ~Tozer
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. ~John 6:63
Related: The series through the Season of Easter:
Has Anyone Seen Signs of the Easter People?
When it Comes Time to Really Die
When There’s a Search for Eyewitnesses
How the Kids and the Next-Door Neighbors Might Really Become Christians
Wounded Spirits: How to Stop the Bullying
Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart.To read the entire series of spiritual practices
Next Week: Consider sharing in community: As we approach June and the month of anniversaries — and the month of Father’s Day — let’s consider for the next four weeks: The Spiritual Practice of Holy Matrimony. Over the next four weeks, let’s share any aspect of marriage/love you feel led to explore... We look forward to your creative voice, ideas, thoughts!
Today, if you’d like to share: How we Live in the Spirit ...just quietly slip in the direct URL to your exact post….. If you join us, might we humbly ask that you please help us find one another other by sharing the community’s graphic within your post.
Photos: the windmill of the Mennonites, tulips blazing in last light here
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