I’ve never been very familiar with the Holy Spirit. I’ve been an “active” Christian for most of my life, yet that mysterious part of the Trinity is the one that I know the least about. Isn’t that something? I’m legitimately disappointed to read these words and realize that they come from me.
Imagine being in a relationship with someone for a big part of your life but not really knowing them. I don’t know about you, but I’d go nuts. I couldn’t take it- that lack of closeness, that lack of understanding on a deep level that is a fundamental part of the DNA of the human heart.
Yet, that’s the way I’ve been with Holy Spirit for most of our time together thus far.
I’m not saying that I don’t have experiences with it, or appreciate what it does, or sense when it’s moving at times, but I’m not familiar with it in the same way that I am familiar with Jesus.
The main reason for this is that I didn’t make time or allow myself to get in the habit of sitting in silence and just being with God. Sadly, that has robbed me of a lot over the years.
I’m a man of action, unless I’m sleeping, writing or making music, and believe me, I can sit for days doing just that. Otherwise, I don’t like to sit still for more than a few minutes- it drives me nuts. I get bored and I start thinking too much. I’ll also get depressed if I’m not careful.
I’m just wired to be busy doing stuff.
I’ve always longed for intimacy with God, and I get frustrated when God seems far-off and silent despite my prayers and lifelong search for answers. The problem is that the Holy Spirit prefers to operate in the stillness, and catching the Holy Spirit is not easy to do unless we’re willing to meet it on God’s terms. The reality is that I starved myself of that intimacy because I wanted things to be the other away around, encountering God on my terms instead.
Granted, encountering the divine through stillness isn’t a novel concept, and anyone with any kind of inclination toward spirituality in general knows this is just how things work.
Yet, for Christians, being still is key to being with the Holy Spirit on a deeply-intimate and personal level that completes us. God knows us by name and desires closeness and familiarity with us more than anything. It grieves God when we aren’t willing to do that. That grief is felt in our hearts, and not-surprisingly, it is the source of most of our problems.
Think about someone you desired to be close with who kept their distance. It hurts, right? That’s a small taste of what God feels when we keep our distance and avoid being with the Holy Spirit through our stillness. Most of our inner pain and heartache can be linked to the effects of that mutual grief- the sorrow associated with ignoring and avoiding closeness with God. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to soothe and satisfy that grief and longing either.
Stillness with God is the prescription, and it works remarkably well.
I gain a greater awareness of how the Holy Spirit flows in, through and around me the more I force myself to just sit and be still. This isn’t a novel concept either- think of our heroes throughout the ages who made time in their lives to meet God on God’s terms too. Think what God did in and through their lives. The great prophets, disciples, saints and even our Lord himself went off to quiet places to commune with God, and the fruits of that time together paid huge dividends in the world.
My favorite story about this holy stillness is when Elijah was at one of the darkest, most-desperate times in his life. He was at the end of his rope and wanted to throw in the towel, and he pleaded with God to end his life in order to alleviate his suffering. He was called by God to serve, but he had a profound, soul-wrenching struggle with respect to making sense of it- especially when everything he tried to do fell on deaf ears, led to closed doors or took him on dead end after dead end.
He was just done. Beyond done. There was a time in my life where I felt the same way, where I was pleading with God to let me die because I couldn’t handle my call either.
He agonized with God, and he grieved. His unrealized call to serve God was such a burden that he just couldn’t take it anymore. He ached to have God answer his cries, to move in his life and make His presence known. Yet, God wasn’t ignoring him from a distance. Elijah was just looking in all the wrong places.
He came to discover how those earth shaking, wind blowing, explosive ways that we expect God to reveal himself to us aren’t necessarily where we find answers.
Elijah found God in the stillness that followed his encounter with those things, his spirit was renewed, and his life-purpose began to finally make sense and bear fruit. Read 1 Kings 19 when you have time. It’s a great story, and it reminds us that our longing for God can be satisfied when we draw near to heaven through our stillness too.
I have a long way to go in terms of developing the habit of consistently making time to be still with God. It takes time and it takes practice. However, I end up desiring more as I do it more often. It’s not so much that I want to spend hours a day in some kind of trance either. Rather, I’m learning that spending a few minutes here and there throughout the day has a spectacular impact on my overall spiritual and emotional health and well-being.
What I’m discovering about the Holy Spirit, and experiencing through it, has been nothing short of eye opening and life changing. Yet, it’s happening in such a gentle way too. While I still regret not tapping into this years ago, I’m grateful to have this wondrous interaction as part of my life now.
I hope that you can make more time in your day to draw closer to God through the stillness too. Simply doing that will lead you to greater intimacy with God, and words can’t express how the Holy Spirit will fill you or where it will take you. If you ever want to take things even further, try to find a few minutes to sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament or get to a mass early and just sit.
Amazingly enough, being still with God isn’t an end in and of itself either. Rather, it is the source of endless new beginnings that takes the soul to some amazing places. God is not distant from us. God is ever-present everywhere. Sometimes God may feel distant or far-off, but it’s only because God wants us to draw closer, and wondrous things come out of that when we do.