What does the Holy Spirit Feel Like?

 

What are your thoughts on this verse:

"Teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

That was Psalm 90 verse 12, and that was the SECOND verse that our pastor at the church plant Kevin and I were saved at, and that we were taught to memorize.

Acts 1:8 was the first verse,  when Jesus said, “but you shall receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and to the ends of the earth.”

We were new to the faith, just getting our feet wet, and had no idea what it meant. Judea? Samaria? Where are these places and what's their significance? 

And... hold up... We will receive power?! 

What kind of power? 

What is that about?

 I know now, as I've felt this "power" a few times in my life. Actually, I feel its presence every day. 

Some days it's intense, though. 

Today was one of those days. At our church service this morning, praise was good, and God-honoring, and the sermon even better, but tears formed in my eyes and by the last song I was...

Shaking! 

My body shook and my eyes were wet with tears, a few of them fell. 

We sang "O Come to the Altar" by Vertical Worship was our closing song. I shook the whole way through it.

It wasn't a shiver. It wasn't from sobbing, (because I was weeping and not sobbing). No, it was more like a quaking. Like I could lose my balance at any moment. And, almost like a pressure was pushing down on me. 

It's a feeling I recognize well. But it's not comfortable. And it doesn't happen often. 

As the service dismissed, I said to our other vocalists, "Whoah! I'm shaking!" 

And I don't know if they had any idea what I meant. 

Do you? 

God is the God of possible, but also sometimes (and often) the unexplainable.  

Now that I am practicing the "getting out of the way so that the Holy Spirit can move." 

Today, during the sermon I started to feel it, and when our pastor prayed, and it was time for the Praise team again to go up to lead the last song, the feeling --more than a feeling-- came on full force. 

God anoints his people.

I remember the first time I heard the word anointing; it was at the first and only church plant we ever attended, my husband and me.

It was called The Gathering Place

This was a church plant was made up of a small group of people, very small, maybe a dozen? that gathered inside of a rented room in a community center. 

Sermon notes were posted on a blackboard, and the altar was a podium pulled from a corner of the room, often with drops of oil sprinkled on it. (I’ll get to that more later.)

But, every Sunday, we sat with that small group, on metal folding chairs, chairs, listening and sometimes singing along to praise music still unfamiliar to me and Kevin. Our pastor led a sermon, then we took a break for coffee and donuts and then we all gathered our chairs into a circle of chairs for a Bible study and a discussion of whatever scripture or portion of the Bible we were studying.

The pastor, a black woman who I knew from social media who was also an entrepreneur and former attorney before she felt God's calling on her life.  We had sung the music for at her various events (and she always slipped a Christian song in there, which we would were paid to learn and perform, but at the time it was a job, not worship. Our hearts were not there, yet.)

Eventually, though, gradually, Jesus took hold of my heart, soul and mind and called me to his purpose; both my husband and me.

Power?

There are a few times when I’ve felt the holy spirit’s power on me.

I’m sure it is a different experience for each one of us; our God is a personal God to us, but for me it is overwhelming, my body shakes and I am overcome by the shaking… usually to the point of tears. I feel pressure almost like I am being pushed by a heavy rock into the ground. I feel a heaviness, and burdened, and overwhelmed. I feel a combination of desperation and longing...all at the same time! It's quite an experience. 

I experienced it today, during worship.

And I thought about the past week, and family drama and my own faults and ways that I DO NOT even come close to matching up with our Lord’s footsteps. 

Have I even come close to walking in His spirit?

Have I handled various conflicts (and my own emotions) with spirit or my default human, sinful tendencies? (Yeah, you know the answer!). 

Repent

The first day of each new month our congregation takes communion. A few sermons ago, we were asked to ask for forgiveness before communion and repent of any wrongdoing.

We are encouraged--warned--to get right with God by our pastor before we take communion. 

Anything you do is a practice.  I am practicing becoming a better worshiper. What that means for me right now is I am learning to get out of His way so that he can move through my worship, and through me if He chooses.

I don't know if this sounds easy to you... it's not at all an easy thing. Yeah, yeah, maybe it IS simple. And we know that simple rarely, if ever, means easy.

Yesterday I put that into practice, and my words were jumbled (in my head, not to the congregation) and I said some stuff and held back other stuff and tried to listen to the spirit. 

And worship happened. And the sermon happened. And then the shaking happened. And, tears came, And, by the last song, the Lord held my voice back for so long that when it came time to sing the last song, nothing came out. 

The team started singing without me, I came in a verse or two later. 

And, it was a sweet, sweet worship. 

Photo by Michael Kroul on Unsplash