Every January, hundreds of college students get together in Panama City Beach, Florida for a weekend of community, worship, and just plain old fun on the beach. Myself and others from the campus ministry I'm involved in were just some of those hundreds of college students. Getting up anywhere from 6 to 7:30 in the morning (or not sleeping at all), pack up a 15 passenger van, and hitting the road for a really long road trip from Kansas to Florida (or flying for some). I know for me, I was hoping to ride comfortably the entire trip. Not sure where in the world I got that idea from, but I digress.
After stopping in Memphis, Tennessee for the night and finally getting to the beach after a good 32 total hours of travel I was ready to see what God had in store for this weekend, and to my surprise, he had something in store that I wasn't really expecting nor really wanting. The theme for this year was "Empowered" with the Holy Spirit being the topic. I guess I'm not really sure exactly what I expected from the trip, other than to maybe learn a little more about the Holy Spirit and feel a much needed spiritual refresher, but what I ended up getting was something completely different.
The first half of the trip went rather well. I got to get to know people within my campus ministry a little better, or for the first time. I had fun, I slept a lot more than I wish I had, and had a nice bit of nostalgia while playing Pokemon Yellow on my phone. Everything is going good and going great. Got to the conference and started off with some amazing worship, a good message on the Holy Spirit, and enjoyed my annual "Sit on the balcony and stare at the ocean for hours and reflect and think" time.
The next day started off really well. Had more worship, great group conversations, good lunch food, and some great time hanging out on the beach and the hot tub. Then, for some reason, something really hit me and hit me hard that evening, and I began to get depressed. I began having this overwhelming feeling that I wasn't being all that included in the group. I was beginning to have feelings that I didn't want to have this weekend. I felt myself beginning to get angry, enraged even. I had such a wave of emotions, that to be quite honest, I'm not exactly sure what all I felt. All I know was something wasn't right, and I had no idea how to deal with it. I was torn. I wanted to be with people, but at the same time wanted nothing to do with anybody. There was something going on deep inside me, and needed to be addressed.
As I sit here writing this, I realize in hindsight that this trip was a trip that I was going to be directly impacted from the conference in the most indirect way. This weekend, in my life, the Holy Spirit moved, and it moved hard. These issues, these...inner conflicts I was feeling, have been things I had been feeling for quite some time. I've talked about it to some degree in recent posts, but on this particular weekend, I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit brought these feelings out so that maybe, just maybe, I could get my foot in the door of actually addressing them in a face to face manner to those that I need to communicate to about it with. I have issues, I have struggles. All of us do. If you don't have anything wrong with you, please by all means show me, I'd love to see it. One of the speakers this weekend said that you can't really explain the Holy Spirit, instead you experience it, and that the Spirit moves in whatever ways it wants to. I'm pretty confident that I experienced the Holy Spirit this weekend, and that I experienced it in a way that it wanted me to experience it.
When we talk about the Spirit, we often assume that when you encounter it that it usually ends in an emotional time of worship and what we usually feel to be this burning feeling where we begin to come in (or back into) this true state of servanthood and dedication to Christ. Now, I'm not saying this isn't always true, but if I'm to be completely honest, majority of the time, I don't think that's truly a work of the Spirit. I think it's more of just the emotional connection we get through whatever venue or event we're at at the time. After this weekend, I have become more convinced that the Spirit cares more about the deeper things then just giving you a quick spiritual high that usually wears off after a few days. I'm convinced that the Spirit cares more about bringing up the sins, the struggles, the issues, the deeper emotional issues that need to be addressed and worked on. Not only just for you and in you, but for the church body.
The Spirit is moving and it wants to be on every believer in the world, but I feel (and I'll target the Church body in America for now, just because I can observe that easier than the rest of the world) that we are just refusing to let him in. I've been in gatherings where people pray and welcome the Spirit into their presence and yet, for some reason, each and every time by the end of the gathering, it feels like if there was any trace of the Spirit, it's long gone by the time everyone makes it out to the foyer.
So why is that? Well, to be honest, I don't have an answer, only guesses and assumptions, but I feel that they should still be thrown on the table. The closest thing that I have to an answer is that one or many within a group or congregation just won't allow the spirit into them, and for all I know, could be having an impact that is hurting the congregation at large. I can guess that maybe we don't really want to invite the spirit, after all, we've placed such a high taboo on it. Or maybe when one invites the spirit he is doing it for show, to look good in front of his brothers and sisters in Christ, but really, I think it really boils down to to one main thing, and that is where are hearts are at. I've so many people who are starving for the Holy Spirit and end up leaving a congregation because they aren't being nourished enough. Now, with that said, does that mean that the body of believers doesn't have the spirit with them? Of course not, but it sure is a sign that they are also being malnourished and may not even realize it.
Where does things go from here? I've only scraped the top of the iceberg in addressing this and am purposely leaving out a lot of stuff in this post, because I only wanted to address what I have thought about since returning from this trip, but I don't want this post to be the only thing about the Holy Spirit that you stumble upon. I know God has things planned for me this upcoming year regarding his Spirit that is going to make things extremely rough and uncomfortable, and I pray that whatever may happen that through it his Kingdom may be furthered where I'm at, but I also pray for you reading this. I pray that if you do believe, that you will spend time on the Holy Spirit. That if you belong to a church that is being malnourished, that you will let God show you a way to allow his Spirit into your body and breath new life into it again. And if you don't believe, I pray that you may soon experience the Holy Spirit in a way that could never be explained, and that you will see that this God that we serve is so much bigger than any of us Christians could ever try to make him out to be. 2014 will be a year where things will happen regardless if we want it to or not. I just hope that we will.
Till next time
Richie Tha Rapper
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