A Student Recalls His Experience During Holy Spirit Week at the School OF MINISTRY
By Michael Aviel
His name was David, but not the one at whom Saul threw spears, neither did he carry a harp or a shepherd’s road. His face was bright with the flame of life. He held the mic, standing nonchalantly under the School Of Ministry monitor's stage banner. With a warm smile, he uttered a few words in a potent French accent, “Holy Spirit more.”
I sat at my usual corner where all the cool SGL’s (Student Group Leaders) sat. My legs were crossed, my focus slightly attentive, and the furrows on my brow expressed a tad of criticism. “Here we go again, another theological breakdown on the third person of the Trinity.”
It is called the School Of Ministry, a true and fitting name for this establishment. Ministry, indeed, it teaches. It instructs all those who pass through it, the ministry built on a relationship with Jesus.
I remember this week; it is forever embedded in my memory, carved deep within the recesses of my heart. This is the week that brought experience and meaning to me. The week that made me understand Andrew Murray’s timeless words, “The Presence of Jesus was the Bible School Of The Disciples.”
The greatest teachers are those who teach us through experience. It is one thing for me to break down the entire recipe of jerk chicken, and it’s an entirely different thing to prepare the meal for you and invite you to partake of it. The great psalmist David once penned these words, “Taste and see that the Lord is good...” The palatable experience of God is the tasting of God. And like I learnt that week, the Holy Spirit is the flavour, the aroma and the feast called, “God experienced now.”
Each morning at school, we have approximately 3 hours of teaching. But, dear reader, these are not the monotonous university lectures that let the brain wander off. These are teachings, aimed not to capture the mind, but to captivate the heart with the awe of God, the awe of His breathing (neshema) reality.
With one arm stretched out as if to receive, another arm on the mic, David simply said, “Holy Spirit come.” There was no shouting. No hysterically praying God down, no violently shuddering in tongues. It was just simplicity and ease, embodied in these three simple words, “Holy Spirit, come.”
God is an amazing teacher. His actions are a great tutor, His movements are graces of ‘how to.’ What I saw in that room after that prayer, was the ease in accessing the depths of God. And I knew, that surely indeed, Bruce Lee was right when he said, “Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.” Often times our super spirituality and our need to perform veils us from God. Sometimes the way to experience Him is just in a vulnerable repose of the heart that says, “More Lord. I need you.” Simplicity brought a majestic manifestation of His Person that morning.
Why the simplicity of the heart? Because simplicity echoes the untold stories of Jesus’ humility. And it was through humility He came to us, humbling Himself in humanity’s skin. Simplicity also chants the truths of, “I can’t. Only You can.” Simplicity is the banner that echoes Moses’, “I will not move, unless Your presence goes with us.”
We all sat there as children waiting for candy on Christmas, anticipation building up in the room. Slowly, soft, tender giggles could be heard - no jokes had been cracked, just a simple, “More Holy Spirit.” Then, like flood gates, roars of laughter could be heard. They were happy laughter, so free and pure, so childish despite our varying adult years. It came to my ears as a tickle and bounce - and a rocky heart could do anything but join in such generous mirth.
The Joy Of The Spirit
Laughter is an expression of joy. Laughter usually points to a great amusement or a comedian. True laughter is not something engineered by one’s sheer brilliance, true laughter is the singing bells that happiness carries. And usually, our joys are attached to a happy circumstance or a good outcome. But there is a joy called the ‘Holy Spirit.’ He sets our souls ablaze with joy, causes hearts to laugh away the anguishes of the past, melts our frowns away like snowballs in a microwave. He illumines the person of Jesus before our eyes, gives clarity and seats us as Kings with Jesus. He is the crowning of our Christianity and He infuses the weak and the fearful with confidence. Men’s hearts sail through storms of life in peace because of Him. He is a pleasant delight to all who love Him, the soft wooing of God’s thunder to us; He is our vision into the Kingdom, the TV channel of the Godhead.
God has given us eyes to capture our fond memories, and often times our eyeballs get in the habit of being scarred by life’s hurts and pains. But the Holy Spirit does amazing surgeries to our eyes by letting us behold the manifestation of the Spirit. Curious holy observation can be a ‘happy entrance’ into the chambers of God’s bliss.
Yes! Bliss …That drunken, happy, euphoric, peaceful feeling — the bejewelled truth Paul wrote concerning Jesus, “Christ arrived as the high priest of the bliss that was to be…” (Hebrews 9:11, James Moffatt Translation).” Blissful is the only word that could embody the holy synergies of that morning at the School of Ministry. It was a morning of amazing restorations in joy. The Holy Spirit seemed to have created a small vacation. It was a vacation of blessed relief from all the distress that had shoved its way into our lives. For a single moment, the haze of pain and sorrow was no more, and it felt as if God was saying, “This is the life Jesus paid for — Joy unlimited — Will you let this be your portion?”
Thirsty for holy SPirit
Spiritual prostitution runs rampant in the hearts of men, simply because we are a people prone to use one another. And sometimes we project this to God, ‘to use up’ the Person of the Holy Spirit for our selfish gain. This is because that deep within our psyche we still see the Holy Spirit as a thing. But He is not! He is a Person, spiritually tangible and real, desiring our love and not our service; desiring our hearts and not our ‘DIY' hands. He is not after employees, but lovers — those whose inward recline is simply, “Come Holy Spirit.” You see, it was when I mentally shifted, and I saw Him as the Person He is that something happened. My desire for a feeling of ‘goosebumps’ faded. So more than shaking, or laughing, I wanted to hold the Person Himself. I wanted to look deep within His fiery eyes and be lost in those pools of love. I wanted to savor the substance of His being. I wanted God - God and God alone.
I wanted the Holy Spirit.
I remembered that my heart seemed to be split open. The splitting felt like a liberating ‘dividing’ and I felt bolts of electricity shoot in my chest cavity. My hands began to tremble, I was flooded with such a peace and clarity that hinted, “eyes in the Kingdom you have. See the ultimate Son.” The room rippled with holy laughter. It was radiating outwards through the packed hall of the students, and soon it became great waves of Godly hilarity.
The scriptures are true, “…In His presence there is fullness of joy, at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.” - Psalms 16:11. His joy was our canopy that morning. He restored years of stolen childhood through His laughter. We felt God’s pleasure for us, laughed our stolen and missing lives back.
We saw angels in procession and understood that the Kingdom is the bliss of the Son.
We saw the Holy Spirit as a Person, whose hands have always been outstretched saying to us, “Let Me hold your hand, and walk with you into God’s untold joys.”
Dear reader, if we miss the bliss, we run the risk of missing the Kingdom. The high places of God are attained through the enjoyment of God. Pleasure is the key, but the pleasure which only the person of the Holy Spirit brings, after all, “at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.”- Psalms 16:11.
And I will borrow language from Paul, - “…the Gospel is the glad news of a happy God.” - 1 Timothy 1:11
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