When was the last time you felt the heat of God’s presence
burning within us, urging us
to choose wisely, to decide prudently, to act justly?
to do the next right thing?
We find so many ways to insulate ourselves from the Spirit -
as if the Spirit of God were something to be feared.
Am I afraid that the Spirit’s wind might knock me down?
That the Spirit’s flame might burn me?
Are we afraid that the Spirit might somehow change us?
Well, when we allow the Spirit to break through, to break in,
things do change.
WE change.
Those early Christians were changed by the Spirit
and God’s Spirit seeks to change you and me, too,
perhaps not as dramatically as in the scripture here
but there’s not a moment of any day or night
when God’s Spirit isn’t seeking to change us, to help us grow.
And perhaps that’s what frightens us.
We want what is life-giving
but we fear what we might need to let go
if the Spirit’s life is to flourish within us.
Perhaps we fear what we might become
if the wind and fire of the Spirit
enveloped our minds and our hearts - and changed us.
And what would we become?
We’d become nothing more and nothing less
than the persons God created each of us to be.
In fact, we might even become the person
each of us would like to be!
