Many a Sunday, I arrive at church hoping a specific need is unpacked in the week’s Scripture Lesson. However, most of the time, while I’m still greatly impacted, my particular thirst is left unquenched. Used to be that I’d settle for patiently waiting for another service to hopefully receive the flowing of understanding, wisdom and direction which escaped me that morning. That was till last Sunday.
Driving home, the Holy Spirit directed my thinking deeper and wider. While a minister’s calling is to lead, God calls upon me, myself and I to follow through on my personal journey’s growth by seeking His Word (the Bible) for each and every answer in my life. I don’t have to sit and hope a pastor will read my mind and deliver God’s individual message to me. Instead, I need to stop overestimating the call of a preacher and, also, stop underestimating the Holy Spirit’s willing capability to enlighten me. In other words, through Jesus’s gift and promise of the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment, I am called to “soul”y search God’s Scripture for knowledge and not solely wait for a human minister to administer tomorrow what the Holy Spirit can lead me to today.
The Holy Spirit is God, and God is the only oasis of power capable of 24/7 quenching each and every thirsty soul wandering through the deserts of life.
Why do I not use the gift of the Holy Spirit as often as I need? Probably, in honesty, because I fail to realize how great a gift Jesus left me when He offered me the Holy Spirit. No matter what the gift given, if I receive it but fail to open the box and use it, the gift is, by my choice, an idle resource. It’s more than time for me to take the Holy Spirit out of the gift box and allow Him to elighten, direct and inspire my spiritual journey.
Yes, we are called to weekly walk to church and sit under a minister for instruction and community; but did not Christ, also, call us to daily seek the Holy Spirit for wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord? In short, if I’m going to turn myself over to using the Holy Spirit as Christ intended, then I will have to start turning the pages of my Bible more from Monday through Saturday and stop patiently waiting for my pastor, in an hour on Sunday, to turn me to the page I need — one which the Holy Spirit could show me any, and every day I ask Him to lead and enlighten me. Simply stated, the Bible holds the answers to all life’s quandries. All we have to do is open and explore its pages while beseeching the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment.
The fact, and shame, is I’ve been underutilizing the greatest source of everyday guidance and leadership given me. Now that I’m convicted of my “overlooking” mistake, no more will I live so wastefully. If, like me, you have been in the same boat, will you jump this anchored ship with me and swim into the living waters of Holy Spirit enlightenment?
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 