Series: Always Relevant: God is…
John 16:13-14, MSG
I’d heard about the Spirit of God in church growing up but I didn’t really know about what it meant. All I knew is that a lot of scriptures I’d memorized talked about the Spirit.
I knew about God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and there were pictures in my Bible of God the Father and Jesus, but the pictures of God the Spirit were like smoke.
I had my own Bible and I loved to read anything I could get my hands on. The library books were interesting and I loved the pictures but there weren’t very many words. When was young and I read my Bible I noticed most of the Bible Stories in the Old Testament were about God the Father and the stories in the New Testament were about Jesus, the Son of God. We did have a few lessons about God the Spirit, but not very many.
On Sunday afternoon after church my dad always cooked lunch for us. It was a big deal because my Mom did most of the cooking. My dad only cooked on Sunday after church and on special occasions he cooked steak or pork ribs on the grill outside.
My dad had three menu choices that he would cook on Sunday afternoon. We either had hot dogs fried hard so they had a crust on them, bologna fried hard, or sometimes we had hotdog, egg, and cheese on a bun. To this day, those are on my list of favs…especially
fried hot dogs, scrambled eggs, cheese, and mustard on a bun. Those things still remind me of my dad and he’s been gone (in heaven) for 35 years.
The other reason I loved Sunday lunch is that it gave me a chance to ask my dad questions about God. Looking back I don’t remember my dad actually giving clear cut answers to my questions.
By trade, he was an engineer. He was in the Navy during World War II and as soon as the war was over, and went to work and he went to night school to get a degree in engineering. He was really good at Math and it seemed like every question I had about anything had a calculated answer or a challenge answer.
He didn’t really give me the answer. Every time I had a question he would ask me a series of new questions. He made me figure it out on my own. So on Sunday afternoon when I would ask him questions about God, he would quiz me about what I really thought about God.
When I would ask him about the Spirit, he would ask me what I thought the Spirit of God would BE like? What would it look like? What would it feel like?
I used to get frustrated sometimes because I wanted my dad to give me the answer. Instead he was asking me what I believed. Unbeknownst to me, he was making me develop my own theology.
For example if I would have asked him what John 16:13-14 was about he would ask me what a friend looks and feels like?
We read in John 16:13-14, “But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you.“
My dad would help me to envision a really trustworthy friend, someone who always told the truth (like the whole truth), someone who was never a show-off or was self-centered, and someone who always helped me to really understand the hard things about life. At the time the most difficult things I’d faced related to when I had my tonsils taken out, when we got stuck in a really bad snowstorm, and when we went up a mountain in Colorado on a bus and I got really scared.
He would ask me what I felt like when those things happened. Then using my real life examples he would tell me the Spirit will help me feel okay about things like that when they happen. He would ask me about what honor meant and what it would feel like.
He would put scripture on my level and help me to understand or think about how God can help me.
Sometimes I would get frustrated that he didn’t just give me the answers. What he did was break down hard questions into mini questions I could answer.
It was actually a genius way of helping a child develop their own theology. He didn’t tell me what he believed or thought. He led me to struggle with what I thought. He trusted God the Spirit to be my guide.
We did that Sunday after Sunday, year after year, when I was living at home.
Then one day I heard Billy Graham was coming to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and my church was taking a bus load of people. My Mom was pretty protective of me, but my dad decided I was old enough to go with people from church.
I was pretty excited to hear Billy Graham in person. The year was 1967 so I would have just turned 14 years old.
When I got off the bus I walked inside the stadium with people I knew.
That’s about all I remember about who was on our bus.
Once I was in the stadium, a hurricane wind overtook me and everything in my life changed forever.
Literally. I’ve written about it before in detail so I’ll just say that I cried the rest of the night.
I’ve never been the same since.
When I got home my dad was waiting for me to see how it went. I know now that he was praying for me the whole time I was gone. I can tell you that God answered big time.
When my dad asked me what the Spirit was like I told him, “The Spirit of God was a hurricane wind that changed me forever.” Today I would add that the Spirit of God is love eternal times a gazillion billion.
I didn’t know it then but now I believe that God knew my future and He was preparing me to receive it.
The Spirit of God WOKE me that day and my life has never been the same since.
Spiritual Practice: Ask
Ask God to give you the Spirit. Even if it won’t be your first time, ask for a good measure of the Spirit of God today. Be woke in the Spirit.
In God, Deborah
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