I have so much to learn. I have never believed the illusive lie that “I have arrived”. I feel like the more that I learn, the more there is to know. About God, about ministry, about friendship, about marriage, about parenting, about life.
More often than not, I feel a failure; I feel like I need more tools, more knowledge, more wisdom.
And so a dear friend recently shared with me this simple phrase, and it has been rolling about in my head and heart for weeks now: “Holy Spirit, take me to school.”
Take me to school.
I love school. I love syllabi and highlighters and the feeling that my brain is expanding and along with it my heart, as the more I know, the more people I can connect with, relate to, converse with. Because, really, I love people. I have oftened longed to go back to school, to get a masters in theology or couseling or both. And so this phrase, this invitation to the living God, struck a chord in me.
Take me to school.
How often do I not ackowledge, that I, we, have the spirit of the living God, living in our interior? He is a helper and a counselor, who in scripture has a will and emotions and intellect. We can grieve him, we can cause him to rejoice, we can go against his will, or come in line with it. He has all knowledge and insight… {and I use “he” loosely as the pronoun in scripture for the holy spirit is non-gendered, but unfortunately we have no such pronoun in the english language}. The point here is that the holy spriit is a person. If Jesus is God in a bod, then the holy spirit is God in our bod.
We contain the living God.
That is crazy talk.
But if I really believe that, then I have access to all wisdom and knowledge and insight and peace and faithfulness and self-control – all that I need for life and Godliness. And if I trust that all relationships have a way of shaping us {I have heard it said that we are an average of the 5 people we spend the most time with} then the more time I spend with this perfect person of God, then, then the more I will be like him, without trying very hard. I am convinced that my effort should not be in trying to be good, but in trying to be near God.
So when I am failing with my kids {often}, need wisdom in relationships {regularly}, desire to grow in humility {hourly} hope to love more completely {constantly}, I merely need to stop, acknowledge the God of scripture, and ask for him to take me to school.
Love this post! Funny thing is that this morning I had the same thought. While praying I decided to talk to the Holy Spirit specifically… because I usually pray and talk to God the 3 in 1 trinity as a whole. But today I thought… well Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to earth after he resurrected and went to Heaven… the Holy Spirit is here. The closest moving, breathing, powerful being on this earth since Jesus. My immediate comforter. I realized that all gifts such as wisdom, praying in tongues, evangelism, patience, long suffering… are all given by the Holy Spirit. Knowing that the Spirit is also a person… I desire to know Him more and form a bond, a friendship.. a relationship with Him. So I prayed this morning talking to the Holy Spirit asking Him to become my best friend for life (litterly ha!) and through this relationship I can share my heart to him as well and He share with me God’s. I completely agree with you when you say that the more time we spend with the Holy Spirit, the more we will be like God without even trying! They say the people you’re with will rub off on you… who better to be around than our immediate friend and comforter the Holy Spirit and have the Lord rub off on us! (I hope that made sense! Ha!)
But I completely agree with this post and am so happy that I came across it today as I also had the thought of the Holy Spirit in my heart as well!
God Bless Emily! 🙂
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What a thoughtful response! Thank you!!
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Your welcome! 🙂
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