Holy Spirit week
As I sit here I am starting to regret somewhat taking up the task of writing a post on Holy Spirit week. You see, It’s difficult to write on something as complex and personal as the Holy Spirit! He is God after all… And God is still a beautiful mystery to me. The Spirit of the Lord is really something you should experience and not read about.
However, I will try share some of the crazy experiences we had and how God revealed Himself even more. One thing that stood out to me was just how the Holy Spirit manifests differently and personally for each individual. This week we got an intense dose of the Holy Spirit and people reacted in varying ways. Personally, this week was a real challenge for me as I felt the Lord was uprooting a lot of deeply buried hurt in my life.
My encounter with the Holy Spirit was a very emotional and painful one. My spirit was in a grieving state, but as I made myself vulnerable before the Lord, He did not let me down. This week we really expelled the fear of man that was present in many of our lives. If someone was to come into the DTS classroom on Wednesday night they would have thought we were all drunk.
And we were drunk, drunk in the Spirit! Some people were laughing hysterically together as the joy of the Lord overwhelmed them, while others (such as myself) were crying from a deep and agonizing place and others were writhing on the floor, giving birth to some serious spiritual babies. Holy Spirit week left me with a greater understanding on just on how gentle God’s Spirit is. He will never force you into something you aren’t ready to take on and He is always super sensitive to where you are and what you need. Although this week was a challenge for me, I have never been so aware of God’s presence before. I could physically feel the thickness of His being and how closely He was holding me.
Although the baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn’t give us more of God, it certainly makes us more conscious of Him. The Holy Spirit is our counsellor, teacher, reminder. He testifies truth, convicts the world of sin, and reveals Jesus to us.
By Emma from South Africa
