I’m one of those Christians who likely doesn’t give the Holy Spirit enough credit. Sure I will acknowledge him as at work in the world and even within my heart and mind, but when it comes to actually “hearing his voice” or receiving his guidance, I feel like a blundering skeptic. After all, I know how my mind can fire random thoughts at jackrabbit speed, and I believe these thoughts can be manipulated by both God and Satan. So when voices are echoing off the walls of my head, how do I discern the voice of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit from that of myself or others?
And so, with this experiential and theological background, I wasn’t exactly comfortable when our spiritual retreat speaker and his team got up front and started describing “pictures” and thoughts that they felt God wanted us to hear. Then, even more uncomfortable for me, the team was asked to come out and lay hands on individuals for special Holy Spirit-directed prayer. Well, one young man, 19-year-old, Luke came straight away to me, sandwiched my torso in his hands and began praying in a quiet whisper, “Come Holy Spirit, come.” I didn’t know exactly how to understand that prayer since in its simplicity, it implied that the Holy Spirit was not already present. Yet, maybe there was a thought left out, something more like “Come on, Holy Spirit, reveal to me what I should pray for this person.” At least that is how I understood it. As I listened and waited, I tried hard to search my heart and my thoughts for what the Holy Spirit’s ‘coming’ might stir in me, but after a good minute of this, I felt like I was staring into an empty oil drum. Finally, Luke spoke up, “I believe God wants me to tell you this, that He sees what no one else sees…”
My immediate response was to swallow a chuckle as I thought “Yea, that includes what you and I can’t see either, apparently I wasn’t the only one seeing the empty oil drum.” But deep down, I really don’t want to be a cynic and I want to be learning and growing in my faith. So I let that thought mull around in my mind even after Luke had moved on to pray for another. “He sees what no one else sees.” Of course that phrase (and any piece of language really) could mean a large number of different things depending on the context in which is interpreted, so I thought about where that statement might in fact find significance in my life right now. “He sees what no one else sees.” What if ‘see’ has a deeper meaning, as it often does, to refer not simply to the processing of visual input, but rather to the arrival at deeper understanding. “He sees and understands what no one else does.” Now that is a HUGE statement that speaks directly into something I’ve been wrestling with for more than two years! In order to explain, however, I need to take a step back, back to last week Friday…
(I purposefully stop the story here, not because I am wanting to hide the HUGE lesson that the Lord taught me, but rather I fear that it might be misunderstood by some of the readers who might randomly pop onto our blog. If you are wanting to finish reading this story, send us an email and we will forward the rest of it to you privately.)
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