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“For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Corinthians 2: 11)
It’s been an awfully windy spring in Oak Cliff. I’m sure you have noticed this. For Christians, late spring and early summer lead us into a season we call “Pentecost.” Pentecost is celebrated as a moment God’s Holy Spirit comes mightily upon Jesus’ disciples, and they become the primary leaders of his movement. As such, it’s a season when we think a lot about God’s ineffable Spirit and how it moves among us.
One of the most fascinating linguistic truths of the Bible is that the word for “spirit” and the word for “wind” are the same. This is true for the Hebrew word (Hebrew Scriptures) and the Greek word (New Testament). And to be clear, in both languages, it’s not sort of like the same word. It’s exactly the same.
Is there any better metaphor for spirit than this? God’s spirit is a like a wind blowing among us. Sometimes, we encounter seasons of life when the wind feels distant and faint. At other times, like our spring weather this year, it blows strongly and powerfully.
The truth we must acknowledge is, we do not control it. Just like the wind, spirit is a bit of a mystery. We cannot make spirit happen, and we cannot keep it from happening. Just like the wind, spirit blows in and through all people. Spirit is beyond our understanding and comprehension. Spirit enlivens all things.
I believe that spirit is the driving force behind all creativity … art, music, science, technology. Spirit moves in and through all things.
One of the worst things modern Christians do is pretend they have some exclusive ownership over God’s spirit. This tends to reduce God to something small and sectarian, rather than the broad and expansive spirit moving in and through all living things. I tend to think it’s why so many folks are turned off by the idea of religious insinuations. It’s because we religious folks have foolishly pretended we control God’s spirit. As the Gospel of John says: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8).
I went to my first live concert in two years last month. A friend and I saw Shawn Colvin at The Kessler. It was so good to see live music again, and to hear this amazing “desert island” musician of my life.
There is such a beautiful presence of spirit in live music and art. It’s also in science, and of course, we hope and pray it’s in our worship services too. But we don’t control any of it. As any good musician will tell you, music flows through them, not from them. This is true for all of us, whatever our calling and vocation.
As ancient wisdom puts it, “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.”
I cannot truly know the depths of your heart, and you cannot truly know the depths of mine. There is a mysterious spirit present in each that is beyond our logical comprehension.
We Christians would do well to remember this. Far too often, we get preachy about other people, pretending we understand their lives, their pains, their sufferings, their histories. (Non-religious folks do this too, of course.)
Spirit is ineffable. It moves where it will. And rather than pretend to control it, perhaps our calling as people of faith is to listen for it, to respond to it, and to trust in it in all of our days.
