Some work of the Holy Spirit

So, want to know what I have been praying for? An in-filling of the Spirit's love.

This friend of mine who took the body of Jesus off the crucifix from his grandmother's funeral also told me a story about what is bringing him to the verge of professing faith in Christ. He was alone in his apartment one day and he kind of out of nowhere, but thinking about life, he felt like he had been punched in the chest and felt his chest swelling up and he just had a profound sense of love.

I was happy to say I knew what he had experienced, but sad that it has been a while.

The prime gift of the Holy Spirit is love. And when the Holy Spirit shows you that, it's an immense feeling of... love, like you have never known.

The first time I had ever felt that was one cold rainy day in Lexington, maybe in 1999. Howard Willen, my pastor, had taken me to visit a fellow from the church who was in a retirement home. I started visiting him and a few other guys. Well, this particular fellow had told me he did not know if he was saved. He had gone to church all of his adult life, was active, etc. I was able to share with him assurance of salvation, not simply in a mechanical sense, as in a repetition of a prayer or the intellectual assent to some tenet of the faith. Rather, I shared with him what Howard taught me, that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). So while we must believe something specific about Jesus-- that He is Lord, that He died for our sins, that He rose again-- the basic tenets of the faith, we also have a supernatural witness of our acceptance, so we do not doubt or cringe or fear.

So I had just shared that with this fellow, Mr Clay was his name. He was so relieved. You could almost see a change in him. I left the retirement home and stopped to get gas at the Shell station that was brand new in those days, on the corner of Harrodsburg and Virginia Ave. There I was. It was a cold day with a drizzle coming down, the kind where you can hear that faint buzz as the cars cut through the water on the road. And for a moment, it felt like time stopped, like I could see everything in slow motion. That sound of the tires going through the water is something I remember quite a bit from that moment. And in that extended moment, I seemed to see the world the way God does, with great love. I felt I did, indeed, love everyone.

And then as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Wish I could explain more. Wish I knew more. I think it is tied to things like 1 Cor 13, and the appearances in the New testament of the word “telos,” and its cognates, sometimes translated “perfect.” Maybe later I can sermonize a bit there. But for now...

I was praying for that again, and really praying that it would come again and stick around in me!

So in this rain, in the middle of so much pain on the earth, I was praying. Maybe more hoping, not sure what to do or think.

And then, it was. I was sitting in McDonald's-- had a brainstorm, needed some coffee and a space to work. A family came in... a baby and twin girls maybe not quite three. They were, to say the least, rushed off their feet! I was kind of lost in my own world, so I did not pay much attention until they were getting ready to leave-- a long process with such young kids! The father had a crude way of telling the twins to get back to the table, and it put me off. I felt a bit of scorn rise up in me.

And then... directly across from me a sweet old lady sits down, looks just like Jessie's grandmother. She sits down and just smiles at me. And she has this pink ball cap on that says, “Jesus loves me,” and I can tell she knows that for sure. Bam. There it was again, that sense. I was thinking all kinds of things, more like they were thrown into my mind. She knows Jesus loves her. Maybe she was unloved. Maybe she thought she was unlovable. Maybe she just rested in the knowledge of the Savior's love. What does it matter, except that He loves her, and not just her, but everyone?

Can you see how He puts up with this world? Our sense that all the evil mitigates against God, if not disproves His existence or His goodness is a complete failure to love. “It is not His will that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance,” Peter says (2 Peter 3:9).

Anyway, there I was. And without thinking, without needing to consider my motives or my change of heart and mind, I went straightaway to share the Gospel with the family and the kids, to talk to them about how lovely the kids are, and how important it is that they know the Lord who has a special place for children.