Attentive, Available, Obedient
As a very young Christian, I was part of a charismatic community that valued the work of the Holy Spirit, and especially the gift of prophesy. Since Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians was to earnestly desire this gift, I prayed and asked God for some kind of wisdom in exercising this gift that would also help me to avoid making a fool of myself or worse yet, be revealed as a public heretic. So I began a missional relationship with the Holy Spirit that had everything to do with paying attention to that internal work of the Holy Spirit that would give me some direction in sharing what I hoped was his perspective or his actions in any particular situation. The little phrase that I adopted was what I believed was the divine mandate:
BE ATTENTIVE
BE AVAILABLE
BE OBEDIENT
And I did. Each meeting I attended I thought of that phrase and submitted to the Spirit for whatever He would want to do through me. Initially it was rather daunting. How does one know for sure that God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, would want to use one such as me to communicate anything in His name?
But I began to hear things from the Spirit and did not share them. But with some regularity, what I was too afraid to speak, was shared by someone else in the meeting. And a sense of gentle and consistent confirmation ensued. And I began to speak out. And I continued to pay attention to these internal impressions and nudges of the Spirit.
Not too much later, this attentive-available-obedient pattern extended beyond formal worship meetings into the flow of life so that I began to connect with people and situations that I felt God was directing–to give some money, to check in on, to offer a word of encouragement, to do whatever I had some sense that God wanted me to do. I don’t see this as anything but normal Christ-following. Jesus said in John 12:26 “Whoever serves me must follow me and where I am there will my servant be as well. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor him “.
So that is part of the simplicity of all of this. Serving means following, and following means having some awareness of where Jesus is in any situation and how He might want to use us within that particular situation. Jesus told his disciples before He left that the central work of the Holy Spirit would be to declare to you the things that are to come ( John 16:13 ). I would suggest to you that He is speaking here not so much about upcoming prophetic events as much as letting them know that the Spirit would be guiding them day by day into the places and among the people that He was intending to touch through His attentive-available-obedient followers. Jesus said the Spirit will “take what is mine and declare it to you” ( John 16:14 ). This is not hyper-spiritual stuff but rather the very practical and ongoing commitment of Jesus to continue to see His mission get done on the earth.
And in saying this much, I am in no way diminishing the centrality of the Scriptures as our foundation and guide for the understanding of truth and Spirit. To learn attentiveness, availability and obedience is a discipline for a disciple, a follower of someone who is always on the move and always seeking to use His servants to do His will. It is my belief that most Christians hear very little from the Spirit because they pay little attention and simply are undeveloped in this kind of hearing.
Because there are so many flagrant errors and aberrations in the practice and expressions of the Spirit, we’re often cowed into fear and passivity, and so avoid mistakes. But that is perhaps the biggest mistake. The Holy Spirit lives in every believer so that He can declare the things of Jesus to us. And as His servants we follow Him to do whatever He requires at the moment. This is our great calling and our great privilege!
Peace,
Ned