Pentecost: The Holy Spirit is Here
The Feast of Pentecost, a sacred occasion in our Christian tradition, marks the arrival of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. In that moment, fear was dispelled, and they were transformed into the preachers, teachers, healers, and unifiers that Jesus called. This event is not just a divine intervention but a profound transformation that can change us into vessels of God’s love and grace. It is a beacon of hope, reminding us to embrace the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
As human persons, we generally think linearly. One thing follows another from our birth to our physical death. That is how life is; however short or long, it is linear in time. It is unsurprising, then; that is how we think about God. God is outside of us, acting in our lives. We look outside ourselves to somewhere in the heavens and ask God to come and be with us.
As we approach this Pentecost, let’s consider adjusting our understanding of God’s presence in our lives. When the breath of life was breathed into our lungs, God came to reside in us. The fullness of God made a home within us. It’s not a coincidence that the word for breath and the word for Spirit in Hebrew is the same, Ruach. Breath and Spirit are inseparable. Every breath we breathe is the Spirit of God within us. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is the sustainer of our lives.
Our lives are not a pilgrimage to God, whom we will encounter one day in heaven. Instead, it is an expedition within to discover the entirety of God that already resides within us. God does not dwell in time. God surpasses time and is one with us from our inception to the moment when our mortal bodies cease. Our glorified bodies are then harmonized with God in His entirety.
Knowing God within ourselves is not an easy task. Everything in our lives and our learning about God has placed Him beyond us. We have learned our inadequacies, sinfulness, and shortcomings well. We have learned that we must “go to” God as if in some distant place to be reconciled. In the parable of the prodigal son, we know that we travel back from a far-off land where we squandered our inheritance. Our misunderstanding comes in thinking the far-off land is outside of us. It is within us; when we sin, we return to the God within. We rest in the God within. We are healed and become whole in unity with God, who is fully present in the depths of our souls.
God— Father, Son, and Spirit are already within us. We don’t need to wait for Pentecost for them to come to us with their gifts. We must be still and allow ourselves to give up our conception of a far-off God and sink into the depths of our being. There, we will find God already present in all His fullness, waiting for us.
When we pray, the purpose is not to call God to come to us. We seek to quiet the world outside of us long enough that we can sink into the depths of the gift we are and recognize God dwelling within. There, in the depths of our souls, we will be at one with God and know peace. It is from union with the Divine that we gain wisdom to handle the issues and heartaches of this life. When we reach our still point, the wellspring of God will embrace us fully in this life. Then we will stop seeking our God “out there” in some distant heaven and know without pause or doubt that God is already here. He is within us in the fullness of His being, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We need not wait to meet God at the end of time. He is here. He is already one with us. He is waiting for us to be still, breathe, and recognize Him already at work in us. Let us embrace this truth and find peace in the knowledge that God is with us, within us, guiding us on our spiritual journey.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
