Where should one start a book about the Holy Spirit? The obvious answer is at the beginning. And so we should first look at Genesis, which is an account of the beginning of the world and glean from there what it says about the Spirit. Surely, if the Spirit is important to God, it He will be present from the beginning.
And that is what we find! Right at the start of the account of the creation of the world it says that, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The earliest writers of the Bible chose that expression to convey meaning. We read it today in a very 21st century way. I wonder if we fully understand how they meant it.
When new things happen in our life, we try to make sense of what we experience. We can’t help but put our own interpretation upon what happens to us. What we see is very subjective to us. We see it from our standpoint or our viewpoint. Two people can be in the same room and looking at the same event and see different things. Sometimes this is because they have different vantage points and are seeing the same thing from a different angle. In doing so, we pick up a different understanding. A simple example could be this. Two people look at the same person in the room with them. This person is wearing a hat. The person who is looking from behind cannot see what colour hair the subject has, whereas the other observer who is sitting in front, can see the hair colour is red. So if both write a record of what they have seen, it will be different..... Or it could be because the perception is different. This is especially true of the spoken word. We hear what we hear and then interpret it according to how much we know already. A child in the room may hear words spoken and not make sense of them at all. An adult will make more sense, according to how their vocabulary is or even how empathetic they are.
The Bible is a faith book. It is of course, obvious to say that it operates differently to the telephone book. Both of them are about communication. But their purposes are very different. I use that ludicrous example to tease out truth. The telephone directory is a list of people you can communicate with. It gives their numbers and you can pick up the phone and speak to them. Many, many people are listed in the telephone directory. We can pick or choose to only communicate with a few of them only. Or we could attempt her to work through the book and phone everyone in it. Fortunately, the Bible as a faith book operates differently. Its whole purpose is to try and open communication with one entity. It opens us up to the possibility that there is a God. And if we work through it cover to cover, we discover that this God is not a cold distant God. He wants to call us into relationship. He is our creator and has given us a free will. The Bible doesn’t have just one author. It has many authors. Each has written about their understanding of God. We believe that God has inspired them to do this. These collected writings therefore tell us something about the nature of God and help us to communicate with him. Back to the telephone directory. If we open the telephone directory and dial the number that is listed in it, we can start communicating with the person at the other end of the phone. If they pick it up.
In the next 40 days. I’m going to invite you to start communicating with God. You don’t have a number to dial. You don’t have a phone to pick up. It would be handy if you have a Bible, but if you don’t it doesn’t matter. You can try to make sense of what I say from the passages that I quote. Most of them will be from the Bible. My intention is to invite you further into a relationship with God. We will look at the nature of the Holy Spirit. My main point for you today is a simple one, because it is best to start that way. Remember this God is Spirit, and He was present at the creation of the world. Each day will have a reflection like this which I intend to be a bite sized chunk. A thought to give you something to dwell upon. Each will then end with a prayer. You can choose to say this out loud if it helps.
Dear God, you were there at the beginning of the world. You were also there at my beginning. I ask you to help me to understand who you are. Teach me more about yourself in this book. Help me to be open to what you have in store for me. Amen.
