Echoes of the Spirit still dwell

You go through life, with it’s ups and downs, and if you’re fortunate, by the time you’re an adult you’ve had time to deal with the childhood wounds and trauma you experienced growing up. None of us are immune to pain and disfunction.

But no matter how much effort we expend to heal from the wounds, some of them are still there, silently lurking in the shadows of our psyche—waiting for the right moment to raise their ugly head and strike in moments that trigger us.

We’re caught off guard, and faced with yet another challenge—another opportunity to face our inner demons and make the conscious choice to heal. To issue forgiveness for the wrongs done to us instead of withdrawing inward and drinking the poison of bitterness. We all have a choice to remain wounded, or to intentionally become wounded healers, willing to take the road less traveled, and to face our pains in order to become conduits of healing in the lives of people that cross our path.

But first, we have to heal.

Growing up in a charismatic church comes with its own set of baggage. Perhaps you’ve been there, steeped in an emotionally charged “move of the spirit,” where every service feels like this ball of somewhat directed chaos and disorder that compels the spirit of God to show up when He otherwise would have passed you by. This maddening cycle of loud music, tears of joy and pain, unexpected screams, convulsions, tongues, and let’s not forget the piercing words of a prophet, laying bare your hidden sins for the entire congregation to see. 

Yikes. 

As I was going through a difficult week, I was hit with a wave of anger and depression that pushed me inward. After the gentle coaxing of a friend who could sense my distance and frustration, I realized that this event had triggered an onslaught of feelings that I had successfully buried for decades. I had been going non-stop, barely a moment to breath and let my soul catch up to my body—let alone pause enough to reflect on the emotions that were surfacing. But there it was, simmering.

I felt out of control. 

Trapped.

A vague anger and frustration permeating my  responses.

After some processing, it hit me—these things were surfacing from my upbringing in the charismatic church. I finally got to the point where I realized that I had been forced to go into a version of Christianity that I don’t agree with. And the circumstance I was going through felt like I was being forced into that again.

“You probably need to get alone with God and ask him to reveal the people or circumstances that you need to forgive of the wrongs done to you,” a trusted friend said to me. 

Nothing came to mind at first, so I thought this would be a monumental task, but as I started writing, a flood of memories came to mind. Situations I had been subjected to as a child: 

• Being told that I needed to pray louder in order to “do it right”

• Being manipulated into thinking God would heal my cavities by giving me gold fillings, only to be let down by my apparent lack of “faith.”

• Being wrongly prayed over for my “rebellious spirit” due to having brightly colored hair

• Seeing people try to pray for a dead friend in their casket in order to bring them back to life.

If I listed out everything that came to mind, we’d be here all day, so let’s just say I was surprised at how effortlessly the list grew. I have a lot of forgiving to do.

But the question remained—what had this developed in me 20+ years later?

“God doesn’t speak to me that way.” 

The phrase had slipped out, surprising me and revealing an agreement I had made many decades ago. Perhaps this is what God wanted to bring to the surface so that I could heal.

I remembered so vividly as a teenager how time after time I had been let down by people, pretending to have the corner market on God’s Spirit. And time and again, God never revealed himself to me in that way. Perpetually disappointed, I had resigned myself to the fact that the move of the Spirit was only for a select few who were more pentecostal than I apparently was. 

It wasn’t for lack of trying—or expecting as was so frequently drilled into my head. God knows I poured my heart and soul into trying. But here, twenty years later, why was this surfacing?

I’d had some tremendous growth after coming out of that environment as I came face to face with Jesus and learned first hand what it meant to begin to follow after His ways. But the Spirit, the wind or breath of God, felt foreign.  And then it hit me—I’ve spent so long attributing God’s Spirit to these  poor expressions of what I witnessed during my adolescent years, that I’ve been seeing Him through hazy eyes in a darkly lit room.

If part of my purpose is to help others be aware of God’s Kingdom in our everyday lives and help encourage them as they follow Jesus, perhaps getting to know the Spirit who empowers us to follow God’s ways would be a good next step.

And here’s what I’ve been learning through this process: God does  speak to me in this way. His Spirit leads and guides me. It moves me to speak truth into others’ lives and call out the goodness of what God is doing. To help them see with clear eyes how God is present with them in the moments of joy, but also when they’re in the depths of suffering. To stay attentive to where he’s leading.

He’s prompted us to sell our house at the right time, multiple times. He’s opened up doors to jobs when all of the doors seemed shut. He’s led me to confess sin, when it would have been easier to hide it. He’s brought me the most amazing wife and 3 wild, beautiful children. His Spirit has been with me, guiding me through the darkness of depression, shaping me into a person who’s been through the fire and emerged on the other side still in love with the creator of the universe and a longing to be like His Son.  He’s kept my heart soft when it would have oh so easy to turn to stone.

And if that’s not the work of God’s Spirit, I don’t  know what is.

So I talked with God and I made a commitment to forgive those people who misrepresented His Spirit. It will likely be a process that I have to revisit as new things come up, but what matters is that I took one more step in this lifelong journey of learning what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus.

God’s Spirit lives within me and is continually pointing me to back to that singular vision—to be more like Jesus. To press on toward the goal, to forgive quickly, to heal completely—even from the things that have been buried for decades. Because he wants salvation for our entire selves; to make us complete in every sense of the word, delivered from the things that keep us stuck so that our lives will shine like stars in the sky, marking the way of the Messiah, and bringing shalom to those who cross our paths.

I’ve found that as God works in the broken places of my own life, the result is a peace that I never knew was missing. Like he’s picking up the pieces of my life and slowly mending them and putting me back together in a way that’s even better than the first. 

And my prayer for you is that God will do the same in your life, by healing the places where you have been wounded and laying the foundation of trust in this King of the universe. And ultimately bringing you to a place where you can agree with these ancient words to the prophet Zechariah:  “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”