The older I get, the more reliant I am on the Holy Spirit. I see it at work when It inspires me with wisdom when I speak to a young person; the Spirit gives me ideas and creativity at lightning speed and it becomes effortless for me to pen plans down when I know that something that brilliant couldn’t have come from me; It reminds me of things that I need to do; It empowers me with courage and bravery to do things I don’t normally attempt; It turns me away from things I ought not to do; It teaches me what to pray; It reveals the truth that is already in my heart. I basically couldn’t do a minute without the Spirit. So I can vaguely imagine how desperate King David must have felt when he cried out in Psalm 51:11, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”

It was an encouraging reminder today at the Foundations of the Christian Life seminar, that the Holy Spirit is a giver of power. I like BH’s description of the Holy Spirit as “the executive member of the Godhead”, meaning the one who accomplishes what God commands. In the Hebrew language, “Ruach” is used to describe the Holy Spirit as the “breath” of God. It’s like hearing a thundering voice, and feeling the air that comes with the booming sound. (Imagine putting your palm in front of a sub-woofer.) BH quite rightly says it, that “the desires of God in heaven is executed by the Spirit of God on earth”.

And so, today’s lessons are in line with last Tuesday’s Jesus Mentor Me session; everything that we learn comes via facts, instructions, advice, news etc. but from all the plethora of data that your mind processes, the Spirit illuminates the truth (that we need to know) from the flurry of information that we receive. This realisation of truth specifically speaks to our hearts and convicts us of what’s wrong and reminds us of what’s right. From this, our minds are continuously transformed and that subsequently causes a change in our speech and conduct. But everything begins from this illumination of truth that the Spirit does. However, if I may reiterate, the Spirit can only illuminate when there’s something already present to illuminate on.

I’ve always seen this analogy of the Holy Spirit at work within us: The Spirit is always beside us, and is connected to us via a string. Whenever we need help and counsel, the Spirit pulls the string and we’ll feel Its’ tug. But each time we turn the Spirit away, more string is released. Remember that the distance between the Spirit and us doesn’t change – the only variable is the length of string that is collected between us. When the string is no longer taut, we no longer feel its tension. However, the more we respond to the tug, the shorter the string becomes and the tighter the tension would be. In this respect, I’d like to think that the grace of God operates in a way that while we’re the culprits releasing string to slack the tension, the one drawing the string back, is the Holy Spirit.

Oh how true it is – “Take not your Holy Spirit from me”!