Responding to the Presence of the Spirit

In my last blog I talked about how we might be aware of where the Spirit is present in the world. So what do we do then when we witness the presence of the Spirit - how do we respond? Do we rush in full force, "guns blazing" as it were with the Gospel, to somehow overwhelm the person becoming aware of the working of the Spirit in their life?

I think we take too many cues from the religious establishment in responding to our witnessing the presence of the Spirit. If a farmer plants a crop and begins to witness shoots coming through the ground, the farmer does not run out there with a harvester in order to gather a harvest - rather the farmer waters the soil, weeds the earth, nurtures the shoot - so that it might continue to grow in a healthy manner.

So much of our response to witnessing the Spirit is to run at people with a harvester with the result being that we uproot the work that the Spirit is just beginning to do in a person's life - with the result being that we uproot the Spirit in that person's life.

I think we need to take a cue from Jesus.

Jesus taught quite a bit in parables - clear messages, but with hidden meanings, meanings which took some time for reflection to begin to understand, meanings which required an openness to the Spirit of God to grasp. Most of these parables were about the kingdom or reign of God.

For example, he talked about sowing a mustard seed into the soil. I am not sure how important a crop it was in Jesus' day, but it seems to me that it was a crop that did not require much attention - plant it, let it take root, and watch it grow from a wee tiny seed into a large shrub in which birds could nest. Also, the woman baking bread, put yeast into her bread, expecting the yeast to work through the dough - her focus however was not so much on the yeast but on baking the bread - the yeast just kind of had to do its job on its own.

So to the working of the Spirit - like mustard seed or yeast, the Spirit works under the surface, somewhat unbeknown to our other purposes - so then it seems our response to becoming aware of the Spirit is not to rush in full force, but rather come alongside for us to listen to the person in whom the Spirit is working, to gain some insight into what the Spirit is doing, so that the Spirit can invite us into a relationship with a particular person in order for us to not trumpet our agenda, but for us to be of use to the Spirit in that person's life as the Spirit directs.

I am not all that sure of what we are to say or do, except to somehow be present to the Spirit, present to the person - in order to be, perhaps like the farmer, to water, weed, cultivate - so that the Spirit can produce the fruit the Spirit desires. This I believe entails a ministry of responding, which requires being there, listening, etc., rather than trying to insert our own meaning, direction in the encounter. The Spirit draws us in to assist the Spirit, not to take over. So often we just want to take over.

Jesus often responded in such a similar way - when the woman who was ill for years just wanted to touch his cloak and hopefully to be healed, his response was "who touched me?" In her touching she encountered the presence of the Spirit and in responding to her Jesus was open to discover what was going on in her life, her mind, etc. There are other examples - maybe we can find them together.

What I am learning is that I need to be more open to responding to where I see the Spirit's presence, rather than taking it as an opportunity to rush in and crowd out the whisper with which the Spirit is speaking in a person's life. Perhaps the first step in this is my needing to listen more - for me to become aware of how I am to be open to the Spirit so that I can even become more aware of the presence of the Spirit in the world.