:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

On Wednesday night our Alpha group at the local prison watched the video and met in small groups on the topic of the Holy Spirit. While I believe it’s really important to learn about the Holy Spirit—you have to start somewhere—it can also be really discouraging.

I now have a laundry list of all the awesome things that are NOT happening in my Christian life.

I caught myself sort of begging the Holy Spirit to descend on me during the video—such is my insecurity at times. However, the point of it all is that the Holy Spirit is within us, and we can’t replicate the Holy Spirit’s work among us.

Our job is to seek and wait. Those two words come up over and over again in the Psalms. Stillness and silence often help, which run counter to everything in American culture.

The truth is that the Spirit sometimes just shows up. Sometimes we need to fight off every distraction and get a drop of God, and it feels like the most precious thing in the world. Other times God fills us with himself in ways that almost seem wasteful. I want to bottle some of it up for later.

Christianity is all about God bringing the dead to life—people who spiritually have no life going on and no power on their own to connect with God. They can only seek God and wait for God to bring the Resurrection.

The Christian life is full of Good Fridays where we confess our sins and die to ourselves. We’re waiting for Sunday to come—the day when God comes to us with his presence, joy, and peace. These are the moments we realize that every other source of joy in ours lives, even playoff hockey, cannot compare with the goodness of God.

However, stuck between Friday and Sunday is Saturday. Before I start singing in an auto-tuned voice, “Gotta get down on Friday” (which can have a sort of spiritual double-meaning if you take it out context), I wanted to say something about Saturdays.

We have to persevere through our Saturdays. There’s no way around it. God does the resurrecting. God raises us on Sunday on his schedule.

On my way to visit some family this weekend while Julie wrapped up some some pressing school work, I put some worship music on in the car. All of sudden, KABOOM! God’s presence invaded, and I experienced three hours of spiritual insanity—joy, hope, peace, love, etc.

Driving through the abandoned wasteland outside of Hartford with empty lots and heaps of rubble and trash, I had a sense of God’s love for the broken people and broken places of this world. The places that no one gives a damn about are his treasured possession—the places where he is Lord. This was his domain.

I sensed his love and delight for me, his child. I felt his acceptance erasing the insecurity I manifested on Wednesday. In a few minutes he erased all doubt and fear.

When I tell people about Christianity, I don’t need to talk about too much theology, even though I’m passionate about theology. It’s moments like these when you meet with God and he turns your insecure Saturdays into the assurance and peace of a Sunday.

I follow Jesus because he rose one Sunday 2,000 years ago, and he continues to raise people every day.