6/12/12

HOLY SPIRIT

Two words that have been the focus of my spiritual journey the last nine weeks.
And by spiritual journey I mean spiritual battle.
What’s with all of this Holy Spirit stuff?
Many times over these past nine weeks I’ve asked for a specific formula to figure it out.
Write it out in steps for me God.
I don’t need anything fancy.
I just needed it to all make sense.
But it didn’t.
So I began to search and search and search some more.
Transnistria/Moldova was a month of seeking.
I used all the resources I could find.
I read 1 Corinthians 12 at least once a day.
I plucked our translator’s mind for the month.
It was a main topic between me and my favorite teammate.
I emailed my dad asking specific questions.
I read Forgotten God by Francis Chan.
And I prayed.
And prayed.
Then listened to God and prayed some more.

I had a million questions and what felt like no answers.
What is being baptized by the Holy Spirit?
Can I have the Holy Spirit residing in me without having gifts of the Spirit?
Can I have more than one Spiritual gift?
Are the gifts talked about in Romans 12 spiritual gifts or just gifts given by God?
What does it look like to use these Spiritual gifts?
How do I get these gifts?

The month in Transnistria was over.
I didn’t have answers but at the time I was ok with that.
I was closing doors on things we had done for the month.
But I was definitely not ending this process I had begun during the month.
I went into debrief with a completely different outlook on those two words.
I was ready and open.
I didn’t know what that meant or looked like
But I was ready for whatever the next step was.
I knew there was more and my heart was yearning for it.
I wanted to be the person God chose to use to heal people.
I wanted to be the person God chose to use to perform miracles.
I wanted to be the person God chose to use to prophesy over others.
So I said, “Here I am God, use all of me.”

I have never been more open to something in my life.
I wanted the fullness of the Spirit.
I wanted to do greater things than Jesus.
So debrief rolled around.
And I received nothing but extreme encouragement from some close squadmates.
They wanted those same things for me.
They were just as excited as I was.
They were ready to celebrate with me.
So they sent me off to Zimbabwe while they traveled to Mozambique
Expecting that the next time I saw them I would be “Spirit filled”.

Our team arrived in Zimbabwe on a Sunday.
We were told that on Tuesday nights our contacts host a prayer meeting.
Well actually it’s called a “Holy Ghost party”.
I was beyond pumped.
Ok God this is it.
I’ve been doing major talking to you about this.
I’m ready!
For two days this night was built up to something huge in my head.
And then Tuesday night came.
We walked into the living room and began to pray.
And then we worshipped.
We ended the night by asking the Lord for revelations for each other.
It wasn’t a huge, dramatic night where people were getting slain in the Spirit.
There weren’t people falling out all over the place.
It was just a time to worship the Lord and speak life into others.
Ok, so no huge Holy Spirit revelation tonight.
That’s ok God, there will be another time.

This was the most simple and basic thing I experienced all month.
From this point on there were many times where I wasn’t sure what I was experiencing
But I knew in my heart that it wasn’t the Spirit.
It wasn’t what my heart longed to have.
I didn’t want to “prophesy” my own desires over someone.
I didn’t want to go on an emotional rollercoaster.
I didn’t want to be pushed over as someone prayed for me.
I didn’t want to name drop any name but the name of Jesus.
I didn’t want to memorize words and say I was “speaking in tongues”.
I didn’t want to laugh because others were laughing and say it was Spirit laughter.
I wanted realness.
I wanted the Holy Spirit to be raw with me.

Seeing everything I did in Zimbabwe made me ask God more questions.
What is it supposed to look like to use gifts of the Spirit?
Again God, how do I get there?
How do I know if a prophesy is from God or humans?
What exactly does speaking in tongues look like?
Why do I need to lay hands on someone to pray for healing?

I still had tons of questions plus some and little to no answers.
But the month in Zimbabwe was over.
It was time to meet up with the rest of the girls from our squad for ministry in Swaziland.
It was time to reconnect with those same wonderful friends from debrief
Who were excited to see me all “Spirit filled”.
So the time came for the question,
“Well Meagan, are you all full of the Spirit now?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond besides just saying no.
My answer was something along the lines of,
“I’m at the same place I was going into the month.”
I walked into Zimbabwe expecting nothing but Holy Spirit craziness.
But then I saw things that exemplified nothing of the Spirit.
So I knew what I didn’t want to be like.
But leaving Zimbabwe I was still unsure what it looked like to be filled with the Spirit.

I was eight weeks into this whole searching for the Spirit thing
And I had accomplished nothing.
I was back at square one.
I spent four weeks with a Charismatic ministry and nothing happened.
If anything big was supposed to happen then was the time for it.

So I did the only thing I knew to do.
I started searching again.
I tried to get it all to make sense again.
I opened the topical Bible we have in our house in Swaziland.
I turned to words associated with the Spirit.
I looked through the Bible for about five minutes.
But’s that all I could take.
God was urging me to just give up.
To stop all the searching.
To quit trying to figure out the perfect formula to make it all work.
As I sat there with the Bible open I finally had my answers.
Just let it happen.
Don’t try to force anything.
It can’t be created.
It has to be natural.
So nine weeks in to this process and I wait.

I openly and eagerly wait for God to use me for greater things.
In his timing.
Because his ways are far better than my ways.
I’ve given up the constant search and battle
Until he says, “Ok my child, let’s do this thing!”