Maxim was a young Ukrainian guy who was eager to learn more English and share about his Orthodox faith. Ian and I had hung out with him one night over some tea, we had spent time in the park building a fire. Now we would be leaving soon and we invited him over to spend time together on one of our last evenings. Ian was in the kitchen making sandwiches just after Maxim arrived and I was in the living room showing Max some pictures from our trip. I came across a picture from China that showed Ian and I were our old team, Team Quake. I explained to Max that a few months ago we had changed teams. I explained that all the teams had been mixed up. When he asked why I explained that the goal of our trip was that all the people involved would grow in faith and grow closer to God. I said our leaders had decided that for people to grow closer to God we needed to be in different relational groups. Then Maxim asked a question I did not expect. He said, “What do you mean ‘closer to God’?”
I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. I was caught off-guard. I fumbled through some things about having a feeling. I said that I know how close I am to God as I read and pray in the morning. Max nodded, but I wasn’t sure I really made myself clear. I ran through some more pictures and soon Ian came in with our sandwiches.
As I thought about it I realized I didn’t really know how to explain “closer to God”. I employed relationship rhetoric and talked about a God who is near and who works in love, but I don’t know that I can tell you what all that really means. Just a few days earlier I had been thinking that to really make an impact with a guy like Max I would need to have more than three weeks with him. He seems to love God and he definitely loves his Church, the Easter Orthodox tradition. But I found myself upset that I couldn’t give him a better answer. I started thinking maybe I could’ve made more of an impact if I could have conveyed “closer to God” in a short compact definition.
Maxim eventually left and Ian and I occupied ourselves with random conversation and a game of Scrabble. Soon the women of FUSE! returned home and they had one of their friends from women’s Bible study in tow. Janina and Marisa turned to me to say, “So you want to teach on the Holy Spirit?”
Again I was caught off-guard. They explained that one of the friends they had made at bible study shared a bus home with them and, after they had shared about their experiences on the Race and had talked about their story with Christ, the girl said she wanted to receive the Holy Spirit. My teammates thought it was to teach a little bit about what that meant before we started laying on hands.
I said, “Sure.” I read a short passage from Acts about tongues of fire and 3,000 being saved and then I told our new friend, Alyssa, about what the Holy Spirit had been doing in my life. I asked her if she had any questions, eager for her to chart me a course as to how to teach. I just kept thinking that the truth I was trying to convey had only really been a reality in my life for several months. I didn’t know what to say or how to talk about the empowerment that comes when we surrender to the Spirit of God.
Soon Alyssa was standing in the middle of the room and we were praying over her and prophesying as we heard God tell us things about her. At one point Ian was laying out some edifying words he felt he needed to share with Alyssa and I was struck by the fact that we are all Holy Spirit babies.
Few of us have been walking in the Spirit long enough to feel comfortable explaining his working to another person. But that doesn’t mean we don’t answer the call. That doesn’t mean that when my teammates walked in with someone eager to learn I should not have taught. I was reminded that when we are uncomfortable, when we don’t know where we are or what to say, we are smack in the middle of God’s will.
He will stretch us to grow us. And when we are comfortable, we are more than likely complacent. When we can explain everything that’s happening, we’re not seeking the mystery.
So how is He stretching you today? Do you feel like you don’t know what to do or how to explain it? Pray for revelation. Ask God to walk you through and give you the words. Don’t wallow in the known, but seek the unknown. Walk in the mystery. Wake up every day to be born again, a fresh bouncing Holy Spirit baby.
