“Do you have the Holy Ghost?”
“We need to make sure the Holy Spirit leads us.”
“I’m just asking the Holy Spirit to lead me.”
“Jesus, take the wheel.”
My thoughts and feelings about the Holy spirit are hazy. By nature, the Holy Spirit is a subject that is invisible and abstract. When we talk about him (Holy Spirit), What are we talking about? Who is the Spirit? How does he work? How are we supposed to interact with him? This week we intend to explore some of those things, but today I want to focus on the biblical words used for Spirit and how they might help us explore some of our questions.
The Hebrew word for spirit is ruakh. Interestingly, it is the exact same word for wind and breath. God’s spirit is an animating force in the world for the Hebrew mind. Something is moving the trees, ruakh. When someone stops breathing, they are dead and stop moving. That too must be ruakh. At first glance, that may seem like a primitive understanding of spirit, but what if that understanding is more accurate than we realize?
For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ – Acts 17:28
‘He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ‘ – Hebrews 1:3
There is a power in the universe that animates it. The scriptures speak of that animating power as bing Him. He animates the world, and he animates us. It’s no wonder we sense something transcendent when we attend a ball game and feel the energy of a crowd. God is sustaining the individuals in that crowd.
The question for us today is, do we let the Holy Spirit animate us? Are we really alive if we are now affected by his wind, breath, and spirit? How can we cultivate a life blown in the direction he wants us to go? Maybe the first step is to acknowledge that even your physical life is sustained by him. That may not feel very supernatural, but it is. Now ask him, Spirit, animate my life in the way you want me to go today.
