So one of the things that Jesus promised and that Christians have always said about what it means to be a "Christian" is that God's Spirit lives in us. This, of course, sounds like a wonderful thing. Only it's often the most disappointing.
It's disappointing for Christians because we often don't feel very different from anyone else. And perhaps it's disappointing for those of you who know us for much the same reason. "God Save Me From Your Followers" is a fun bumper-sticker illustrating this situation. If these are the people who have God's Spirit, who needs that?
In the book of Acts, we get the story of what happens with Jesus' disciples right after he leaves them. And the first thing that happens is that they have this tremendous experience of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes down and they are all able to speak in different languages.
The cool part about that: it happened at Pentecost, which is an international Jewish holy day. People from all over the Mediterranean were there to celebrate.
So this gift of the Holy Spirit was given for this specific time, to these specific people, with this specific point: the disciples had a mission, they had work to do (to explain about Jesus to an extremely diverse audience in town for Pentecost), and the Spirit was given to them to accomplish this work.
Ask most Christians about our own experience of the Holy Spirit, we equate it with warm-fuzzies. Look at how the disciples experienced the Holy Spirit, and it had nothing at all to do with warm-fuzzies and everything everything everything to do with God's mission on this earth.
Perhaps the reason that most of us Christians have such a shallow experience with the Holy Spirit is that we do not understand that it's not given to us primarily to help us to not cheat on our taxes/exam/spouse/boyfriend. It's not primarily given to us to navigate an important decision.
We do, indeed, get those things along the way. But that's not the primary function of the Spirit according to Jesus and the rest of the New Testament.
The Holy Spirit is given to us to be a part of God's mission--serving the sick, caring for the poor, leading a Bible study, bringing up kids in the faith, fighting for justice, and even (with apologies to all who find this distasteful) sharing our faith.
If we miss that mission, we miss out on experiencing the Holy Spirit. And sometimes, perhaps even more tragically, we engage with that mission and don't even realize that the Spirit is right there alongside with us, empowering us, and longing to do so even more.
Either way, most folks in my little corner of Christendom have a long way to go in entering into this incredible reality of God's Spirit living in us...including and especially me.
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