Before July 2011, I don’t think I had ever heard of the Holy Spirit outside of the context of: “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." It was mentioned, but never expounded. Never explained.
I didn’t know what Jesus meant when he said that he was returning to the Father but would send his Spirit to dwell in us. I didn’t know that prayer languages existed, or that there was a difference between tongues of men and tongues of angels, or that tongues was a thing.
I didn’t know that when some people pray for healing, they expect to see it immediately – and do.
I figured that any sort of prophecy was comparable to a message from a psychic, and I knew that wasn't of God and I wasn’t interested.
I arrived at Training Camp for the World Race two hours late, missed dinner, set up my tent in the dark by myself, and hiked up to our first session. I was met with a freedom in worship that engulfed me and challenged everything I knew to be true about what worship is.
Wrecked, I was invited to explore what worship feels like and what worship actually is for me – just me – on a personal level.
Then there was a teaching. We talked about wounds. We talked about deep things, and we talked about it through the lens of scripture breathed by a living God who sacrificed his son so that we could be restored to relationship with him.
Examining memories and experiences that I had kept secret and allowed to fester for a decade and a half burned like nothing my heart had ever felt. We were invited to make our way to the aisle if we needed someone to pray for us; and in my ugly-crying mess, I knew I needed prayer.
As I climbed over a sea of people and chairs to get there, a girl on Adventures staff was already walking toward me. She wrapped my shaking frame in her arms and began speaking to the Father; but I didn’t understand a word she said.
She prayed in a language unknown to men, petitioning our God on my behalf.
My shaking stopped, tears slowed, my spirit rested, and eventually I felt safe. Calmed down, I began to really understand what she was doing. This girl who had just been directly used by God to quell my emotional breakdown was praying in tongues.
So, I guess it’s a real thing?
*Photo by Briana Danese
I was curious, but mostly afraid. I wasn’t sure I believed in tongues though I knew something otherworldly, that I didn’t understand, had just grabbed my heart and held it together when I was powerless to do so.
I was grateful, and I was confused. Throughout that week I was genuinely challenged. I had to seek God with a desperation I hadn’t before.
I had to know what this Spirit was that prayed through the girl whose unintelligible words brought me so much comfort.
I had to know what this Spirit was that spoke to me and through me, that knit bones together, that is supposedly my source of wisdom, my comfort, and my counselor.
I didn't hide my apprehension, and in response, I was encouraged by the staff and leadership around me to seek God – to dive into his word, to sit with him and ask him my questions. This is what I heard in response:
“I have something to show you, baby girl. Will you come and see?”
It was an invitation to explore the God of the Bible – the one whom I had hoped was much bigger than the God I had imagined Him to be. I sat alone with my Bible, awakened to the reality that there was more to God and desperate to see what it looks like for him to work in my life, to discover how intimately and actively he is involved in my life.
The growing process that began then has continued for now over two years. I felt God knit a girl's bones together under my hand in Nepal, and felt a boy's malarial fever break for the first time in days under the same hand in Tanzania. I've prophesied and been prophesied over. Testing each prophecy against scripture, the testimony of other believers, and observation; I've come to learn that God is absolutely still speaking.
I've prayed in tongues and it's still weird to me, and God is okay with that.
The more I learn, the more I realize that I have left to learn. What I’m left with is confidence in the grace of God that will carry on to completion the good work he began in me, and he carries it on through the ministering of his Spirit, which is alive and indwelling, and beautiful, and majestic.
This is just my experience. Others' experiences have been and will continue to be radically different than mine. My only goal in sharing this is to illuminate the reality that God is not limited by our perception of or experience with him – and that maybe, just maybe, he's bigger than we thought.
He has something to show you. Will you come and see?
This is the God I've come to know. Going back out on the field in a few weeks has me so excited to step into a deeper relationship with him as he continues to show me more about his character and his love for us.
I don't elevate the Spirit above any other aspect of the Trinity, and I certainly don't value gifts of the Spirit to be higher than the Gospel – I'm just hoping that more of us will begin to let go of the limitations of their perceptions God because we can because we're covered by the blood of Christ and invited into that kind of relationship with a living, moving God!
This, to me, is the freedom for which we have been set free: to walk through all of our days in intimate relationship with the loving Father who sees us and calls us his, and who invites us to be part of letting his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I still have some physical and monetary needs to get to the field in September! If you'd like to send me the gear I still need, I have an *Amazon Wish List set up with a few items left on it *here!
If you would like to financially support me, I can almost purchase all of my medications and would be so grateful for any amount of help! You can contribute through *PayPal here!
*These donations are not considered tax deductible.
