Looking for Power
About 1:35 a.m., we were waked by our applicances making weird dying noises. The power went out, which wasn't a problem given that we were all asleep. But when five o'clock came, I rolled out of bed, hunted down the candles and wondered how in the world I was going to get by without a cup of coffee.
I looked out the front door, and there was power just three doors down. "Not fair," I thought, but there was nothing I could do. Turns out, there were about a million of us in the Seattle area in the same boat. By 8:30, we were back on, though, and life goes on.
But while I sat in the dark, my trusty battery powered Macintosh hummed away as I kept chipping away at my study of the Holy Spirit. I've looked up every piece of scripture relating to the Holy Spirit, and now I'm trying to place things into context, working to come to some understanding of what Jesus and Paul and Peter were trying to tell us about this power, this entity, this person we refer to as the Holy Spirit of God. I also wonder why in all the years of Bible instruction in the churches of Christ, we rarely, if ever, talked about Him.
I suppose we didn't talk about Him because of our church's historical (read hysterical) attitude toward Pentacostals, wanting desperately to avoid what is seen by many as abuses and falsehoods. And while it makes me a little nervous to actually do this study because of the issues surrounding miracles, tongues, and other such outrageous gifts of the Spirit, it seems to me that the Spirit's work in the world, and in my own life, may be absolutely key in the transformation process.
The power to change. It is one of the central questions of our time, and probably any other. How does a human being change? Do they change? Are we stuck with who we are? Can we do nothing about innate and habitual things in our lives that haunt us, that hijack us, that end up hurting others as well as ourselves? How do we overcome the faults in us, the sin, the failings and the missings of the mark?
There is nothing more profound that the transformation of a human spirit, a human soul: a human being. Rage turning to understanding and grace, hate turning to love, malice and bitterness turning to forgiveness and compassion, not because such turnings are necessary or law-driven, but because of an organic process that ends up flowing from the very core of our being.
It seems central to me that this is a primary meaning of Christ's coming to "save" us. He is telling us that the change we seek is divine, that the power of that change is a free gift of God, and that God gives us His Spirit just for that reason: so that we can live out the discovery of our indentity (hidden in God) with divine assistance and power.
It seems that those who tells us divinity resides inside are correct. It's just that the divinity is not us, but a gift of the One who resides in us, calling His dwelling a temple.
Seeing someone live in the power of the Spirit, exhibiting love, peace, joy, kindness and all those other fruits of the Spirit can sometimes be akin to looking across the corner and seeing power in a neighbor's house when there's none in your own. You know there is power there, and you know you need it, but you have no idea how to get it. Truly, unless the electrician "saves" you, life will not be lived as it might be.
Somebody turn on the lights...
9:38:27 AM 
