Awakening

Awaken my soul, come awake.

To hunger, to seek, to thirst 

Awaken first love, come awake 

And do as you did, at first 

Spirit of the living God come fall afresh on me, 

Come wake me from my sleep. 

Blow through the caverns of my soul, pour in me to overflow. 

This song, Fall Afresh, is by Jeremy Riddle and has fast become one of my favourites. It's the cry of my heart that is just now becoming realised. 

It's a weird thing to have been a believer all my life, having heard God speak to me, follow his leading yet only now beginning to have an awareness of cultivating a relationship with the Holy Spirit. And when I think back over many a church service, there doesn't seem to be many sermons that prioritise such a relationship either. Don't get me wrong - churches believe in being 'filled' with the Spirit, but not necessary cultivating the 'presence', or 'glory' of the Spirit.

Churches are very vocal on relationship with Jesus, accepting his death and resurrection for our sins, following his call into whatever form of ministry he leads you to, and being a servant to him. They are also vocal about seeing God as Father, as a good God, as the Almighty, Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient One. But when it comes to the Holy Spirit, it's more of a recognition of our power here on earth rather than a person that we can get to know. We all know that the Spirit lives in us if we are born again, but I never knew that the Presence of the Holy Spirit can be upon us as well. 

This brings me to how I have previously interpreted our 'first love' experience that so many pastors are calling us back to. I was fully aware of experiences of people who had come to know Jesus in their teenage years or later. Usually there was some kind of encounter and they became so hungry for the truth that they appear tenacious in their worship and pursuit of God. For me, however, I asked Jesus into my heart at 6 years old, and I remember the day exactly. I was baptised at 10 years old and remember asking my parents if I could get baptised because that's what Jesus said to do and I wanted to follow him. Jesus was so real to me, but what I realise now is that I was lacking an encounter.

I never strayed in my belief of God. His provision was too real to ignore. The behaviours of the world were not enticing because I could see the baggage that came with such choices. I thought such things were obvious to most people, but now I think that God rewarded me for my passion for wisdom. But because of this, I didn't need an invasion of love to come and flood my life - so I didn't chase it. Jesus said that he who is forgiven much, loves much, but at my tender age of six [point of conversion] I wasn't too aware of my sins. And also as I was growing up there were not any major repentance times and so, again, I was not in need of a revelation of God's forgiveness. This led to a life of mediocrity. Well, I didn't see it as mediocre then, but with the revelation I've since had I have realised I wasn't living "life to the full". Don't get me wrong - I was a good Christian. I was showing God through my actions and my words. I grew in my boldness of sharing (what I thought was) the gospel to people I worked with. I was pretty good at introspection and finding the unhelpful habits or behaviours that needed God to operate on. I served in Sunday school, attended church weekly (including life groups) so I thought I was doing pretty well.

What I couldn't verbalise then, but what I know now was that I had an unrest in my spirit. I felt like there should be more to life and I think I just put that feeling down to not being married yet - like there was still something missing, but because I was a Christian and had the Spirit in my heart then it was a more worldly issue. This is where my year in Indonesia became key. God set me up. He knew that if He could strip away all my worldly possessions then He'd have me where he wanted me. I often had the 'call' or yearning to spend time with Him, but there was always something better to do: doing my washing, cleaning my room, anything really. But here there was nothing else to do. Nowhere to go. No one to see who I hadn't just been to see. Basically - I'm going to be honest here - I was bored enough to spend time with God. There were no other options. Most of my time was initially spent listening to podcasts from Bethel pastors or reading books from Bethel authors. But as the revelations started flowing, I started to branch out and seek God's face without these scaffolds. It was in this time that I decided that I wasn't getting as much out of the books as I would like. It is hard to chase God without an unforgettable encounter and I was yet to have one of those. I decided that if I were to go to Bethel then there would be people there who could mentor me into a more spirit-led lifestyle.

I'm not sure if other people feel or have felt like this, but I kept feeling like it was wrong to chase a supernatural lifestyle. It was like I was living in two minds. Part of me felt fulfilled and relieved that there was more to the Christian life than I was experiencing, but then there were strong echos of being a 'peverse generation', or evil people looking for a 'sign of Jonah' or something. The good thing about doing the Living Wisdom course with David Riddell and listening to the podcasts helped me understand that not all truth is created equal. Of course there are absolute truths, but I was now aware that Satan can tell the truth if it suits him. This was news to me. But let's think about this. Satan used scripture to try to tempt Jesus in the desert. Is the Bible truth? Yes. Does it stay truth when quoted for the good of the Devil? No. So the Bible (in itself) is not absolute truth unless we are reading it exactly as the Holy Spirit intended. Yes, these thoughts of chasing signs and wonders being indicative of a perverse and wicked generation, but if they're used in context then they don't apply to me here. I choose to look at the verses of the disciples coming in power and bringing the gospel, of their supernatural lifestyles that are available to us when we commune with the Holy Spirit.

We are all supernatural beings. Our essence is spiritual. Our flesh is what keeps us on earth; it's our overcoat; a qualifier to live in this world. If we can grasp that we are first spiritual and second flesh, then our perspective changes. When we are born again (accept what Jesus died for and that he was raised to life by the power of the Holy Spirit) then our focus should change. We are suddenly adopted into God's family. We become his child. Our focus should no longer be on earthly things, but on heavenly things. This is what it means to die to self. For us to adopt God's opinion of us (despite the pleas of our earthly nature which tend to fight against our righteous status); to care more about pleasing God than pleasing our flesh; and who desire to co-partner with Christ and bring a revelation of the Father's love through the power of the Holy Spirit. For me, it is a continual battle to do these things, but since I have been living in Redding, surrounded by thousands of like-minded people, it gets easier. And I've had to learn, that God doesn't mind if we take the easy road to Him. After all, He wants to draw us near to Him, and He provides the ways that we can choose. Sometimes we need to act our way into a new way of thinking, and other times we will think our way into a new way of acting. That will feel hypocritical to most people, but it's not. Sometimes we don't have all the connections we are comfortable with to start living the lifestyle we're called to, but that's where we need to step out in faith and decide who it is we want to be, and if we're not that person yet, then just start doing what that person would do and in time, with a pure motive, the Holy Spirit will work with us and change us bit by bit into that new person. This is part of stepping out in faith. It's making the unseen seen, it's creating a new identity.

So for me, here, I am learning from the spiritual 'giants' in this city. Apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists and pastors who hunger daily for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Up until now I wasn't so aware that there was a difference between the presence of the Spirit in our hearts and the manifest presence of the Spirit. Well, I could see when the Spirit 'turned up' but didn't understand that I could deliberately cultivate a relationship with him in a similar way to having a dove resting on my shoulder. If there is no or little focus on the manifest presence of the Spirit in our daily lives, then it's easy to forget the One that should be our closest companion. This brought new light to the scripture "do not grieve the Holy Spirit". When I started to think of the Spirit as a person, I was able to see how much I'd been ignoring him. What I am understanding now is that God wants to co-partner with us in bringing His love to the world. And that's why he gave us the Holy Spirit - to enable us to share with power and love. What more effective way for a Father to show his love to his lost children that to heal their pain. Is there a more personal show of affection than for the God of all to heal insignificant little ailments like colds, headaches, crooked fingers, sprained wrists - sometimes without even praying. Is there much that can rival such a furious love that is demonstrated by casting out demons, growing internal organs - some that were never there in the first place - lengthening bones, destroying cancers. Is there anything that speaks a Father's delight in his children louder than sending clouds of gold dust, giving precious gems, sending miraculous provision sometimes for no apparent need or reason. I think of parents that blow bubbles for their kids. Why? To see their children having fun, to enjoy life with them. There's no hidden agenda. No one looks at a Dad blowing bubbles for his little girl and asks, why are you doing that? You could be teaching her how to read, or do math, or tie her shoe laces. No one accuses the father of wasting his time. Not when they can see the love that is shared and the joy that is expressed. I have just had a paradigm shift and wonder if that is how God feels when he blows gold dust into a glory cloud. "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him." (Matt 7:10-12)

In this time in the 'land of the giants' I am learning to relax. I am learning to embrace what the Spirit is saying. I'm prepared to be confronted on my prior beliefs or understandings and form new pathways in my mind if necessary. The Bible is not a manual for living. It's an expose on the heart of the Father. It should lead us to his heart. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and we can only get to the Father through him. Therefore I am committing my life to living in the way Jesus did. As Bill Johnson says, if he lived his life as God, then I would stand amazed, but if he lived his life as a human - then I am compelled to follow his lead.