A lesson in the Spirit

In two days, I’ve learned more about the Holy Spirit than I have in my entire life! It’s been explained by a friend and her personal experience, I’ve read about it in an amazing book called “Ruled by the Spirit” written by Basilea Schlink, and most powerfully felt the Spirits presence within me, moving and changing me.

I haven’t felt right since I came to Australia.  I still haven’t.  At first I chalked it up to jetlag.  Then I thought it might be homesickness.  Or perhaps my flat was so empty that it was difficult to feel normal.  But when I attended Hillsong’s inaugural Frontline Renaissance conference I felt something powerful happen to me.  I’m still trying to understand exactly what.

My friends from home wouldn’t recognize my behavior since I’ve come here.  I’ve almost become a recluse, staying in my flat or opting to go out on adventures on my own or just with my roommate.  I have actually avoided the crowds.  My “normal” self or maybe I should say my “old” self, would have been at every party and gathering, bopping around getting to know everyone! Making a statement on who I was or am or whatever, being the center of attention and loving every minute of it.  But since the moment I arrived I’ve felt strange.  Off.  Like I was missing something.

Then I went to the conference and a Holy light bulb went off! At first there was an alter call for everyone who felt the need to be prayed over.  Brendan Brown gave a short but powerful talk on crawling on your knees toward God.  And I felt something come over me.  I went down to the front of the stage and dropped to my knees and cried.  I cried so hard and so long that I was drooling everywhere. But I didn’t care.  I had released something.  No, probably the other way around, God had released something upon me.  I felt even more foreign than before when I finally stood up with my legs prickling.  I went back to my seat and smiled sheepishly to the girls I was sitting beside, not ashamed but not ready to talk to anyone either.

At that point we had a break for about an hour and a half so I went out and grabbed some Chinese stir fry (which anyone who knows me is strange b/c I can’t stand Chinese but I felt compelled to eat some) and went to find somewhere to eat.  I felt (I’m going to be using this verb a lot now I can tell) like I was supposed to connect with someone.  I KNEW I was supposed to talk with someone! So as I was walking around Hillsong’s beautiful building searching for a group of people I could sit with, I felt something say “Go up and sit at that isolated group of tables upstairs”.  I thought, “but I’m supposed to TALK to somebody! And there’s no one up there?”…{crickets}…{sigh} “Ok, I’m going”  So I go up and pop open my bible and begin eating stir fry with my chop sticks and reading John 13.  I was reading about how Jesus washed the disciples feet and him setting the example of the teacher also being the servant when I looked up and out over the view of the landscape and in that moment I felt my Home.  Not my home at Hillsong or Australia but my home in Him.  I felt washed in his love, cleansed and at peace for the first time since I came here.  I think I would have started bawling, I was already tearing up but when I looked over at the table that had been empty only minutes ago and saw it was now occupied by a woman in a purple sundress.  She looked in her late 20’s, early 30’s and she was eating a cucumber sandwich.  So I turned to her and (with what I’m sure  was a strange look on my face) I said hello.

We proceeded to have a lovely conversation about her walk with Christ and our experiences at church and with our families when another woman walked up who I had met a week before at the City campus.  Her name was/is Janice and she actually works for Hillsong as a PA for one of the church pastors.  I’m not exactly sure how the topic came up but she started explaining the concept of baptism of the Spirit and her experience with it.  I won’t go into details about her story, it was quite long, but it was wonderful to see her perspective on it.  I had my own questions on the difference between a water baptism and baptism of the Spirit.  And she shed light on it in a way I’d never understood before but I began to understand just how powerful it really is.   That it was the Spirit who spoke to me, telling me where to go and what to do.

Then today, I found a book entitled “Ruled by the Spirit” and I began reading it.  A much clearer picture began to form in my mind about what exactly the Spirit is and what an AMAZING gift it is.  Let me give you a small excerpt:

Jesus left behind grief-stricken disciples fearful of not being able to stand against the threats of their persecutors.  Yet He says to them: “It is to your advantage that I go away” (John 16:7)…Now, when He who is the second Person of the Trinity leaves this world, the third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, will come to His people to dwell in them.  So Jesus says to them, “I will send you another Comforter” (John 14:16).  In His place another, the Holy Spirit, will now comfort them… Until then the disciples had been able to turn to Jesus at any time with their problems; but now they are to turn to the Holy Spirit for help and counsel.  However, they were not to be separated from Jesus Christ, because He is ever present through the Holy Spirit – the Holy Trinity is indivisibly whole.  The Holy Spirit is at one and the same time the Spirit of God as well as God’s means of making His presence known and glorifying Himself to the world.  He is also the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the means whereby the ascended Lord extends His kingdom in this age and awakens belief in Himself.  By leading us to believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit makes us children of God and leads us to pray “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:14-15)

I believe that the Spirit has been with me for a while now, I just never understood it completely (or at all).  But over the past 48 hours God has provided a revelation to me about what He is doing and will do while I’m here.  Strip away the old, empty out the old of the wineskin to make way for the new wine.  His is taking the established structures and mindsets and razing them to their very foundations to build anew something stronger, something more audacious, something phenomenally more powerful for Him to use in the future.

I still don’t feel completely right but now I’m beginning to understand that I’m not supposed to.   That I didn’t come to Australia to find home…I came here expecting only to be changed and change isn’t comfortable and it’s rarely fun.  It’s painful and sometimes scary.  But I’m leaning into Him, and learning just exactly what that means.

I read a poem the other day that made me break down in tears:

He said, “Come to the Edge.”

I said, “I can’t, I’m afraid.”

He said, “Come to the Edge.”

I said, “I can’t. I’ll fall off.”

He said, finally, “Come to the Edge.”

And I came to the Edge.

And He pushed me.

And I flew.

-Guillaume Apollinaire

(1880-1918)

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