Hammer on Anvil '

The Holy Spirit is such a huge issue (and a largely ignored issue).  It is amazing to me that one week after I posted the What is Sin? blog (which started my recent train of thought on the Holy Spirit), the pastor at my church started a series of sermons about - you guessed it - the Holy Spirit.  One thing he shared today was about the vastness of the Holy Spirit.  To illustrate, he shared a story about a man who came to visit the ocean.  He was from a landlocked country and none of his people had ever seen the ocean, so he was astonished by how massive it was.  He took a jar and bottled up some of the water.  When someone asked him why he did this, he told them that nobody from his country had ever seen the ocean and he wanted to show it to them.  The Holy Spirit is like this too.  We can talk about Him (yes Him, not it), but there is so much to say and so much to learn that any discussion will be merely a jar in His ocean.

One thing the Holy Spirit is frequently compared to is the wind.  As many of you know, I’ve recently started to pursue a career as a pilot.  The wind is a big factor in flight, so I pay much closer attention to the wind now than I used to.  Did you know that the wind has patterns?  In any given geographical region, it often blows in the same general direction.  For example, in Dallas, Texas, the wind often blows from South to North.  This reflects the Spirit in the sense that He is often leading us in the same general direction.  We can learn a great deal about His Will by reading the Word.  The Bible provides excellent guidance as to the general direction that the wind of the Spirit flows.

But the wind doesn’t always flow in the same direction.  Sometimes, for hours or days at a time, it will flow in either a perpendicular or opposite direction.  So what can this teach us about the Spirit?  The Word of God, although perfect, can only tell us the general direction that the wind will flow.  It can offer important guidance, but it cannot tell us how to act in each and every situation of daily living.  This is where the Spirit fills in the gap.  And while the Word of God points towards God for the human race as a whole, the Holy Spirit always flows directly to God specifically for YOU.  The wind of God’s Will may flow in a different direction for you than for your Christian brother or sister.  This isn’t to say that there is more than one way to be saved.  The one and only way remains Jesus Christ.  But beyond salvation, God directs us to where He needs us via the Holy Spirit.

One important apparatus in aviation is the wind sock.  It quickly and accurately tells a pilot how strong the wind is blowing and from which direction.  This is extremely useful as it tells the pilot which direction he should take off or land.

Unfortunately, as Christians, we often think we know better than the Spirit.  We want to take off and land to the North, but the wind is flowing the wrong direction, telling us we should take off and land to the South.  So what do we often do?  We walk up to the wind sock, physically turn it around, and then act as if that is the direction the wind is now flowing.  But this doesn’t change anything but our perception of reality.  The truth of the Spirit’s direction remains constant.

We need to learn to be sensitive to the wind of the Spirit and then realistic about our response.  Let me share a quote that a friend of mine posted on Facebook today: