A Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

I have been avoiding this. Because I remember my own skepticism--the way my heart shied away, the way I wrestled with God until dawn--the way I'm still wrestling.

But I also know how my faith was stunted for eighteen years, because that was how long it took me to run into someone who truly believed that the Holy Spirit of the Bible is the Holy Spirit of today, and that our God is still a God of the logic-defying, science-altering, turn-the-world-upside-down impossible.

And when I finally met that person, I thought she was completely nuts.

At first. Until I lowered my defenses and started seeking God--letting Him shatter the walls of the box of my own understanding that I had spent my entire life caging Him in, my list of doctrines that defined the ways He did and did not work--and I had called those regulations Biblical, and I had called them discerning, and I had defended them with my being's every fiber.

Then God showed up and ruined everything. And all the things I thought I knew were brought into question, and I have never been more terrified. He messed me up, and I have never since recovered. But I am learning to believe, and begging that He help me overcome my unbelief.

And what do I believe?

(His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.)

I believe the sons and daughters of God will prophesy. I believe the Holy Spirit will tell them secrets, about the future, about the lives of others, and the children of God will speak those truths over their brothers and sisters, and when their brothers and sisters hear those words, their hearts will spill over with hope.

I believe the sons and daughters of God will have visions. Clear-as-day pictures, entering their minds without warning, visions revealing spiritual mysteries.

I believe the sons and daughters of God will dream dreams. I believe God will speak to their dreams in stories and symbols, and if they will seek out its meaning, the Spirit will be their interpreter.

I believe God will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, gold dust and angel feathers raining down just to remind His people that He is near. I believe God's children will lay their hands on the sick, and the sick will be made well. And on the dead, and they will be raised to life. God's children will speak in languages of earth and heaven that they do not know. God's children will cast out demons.

I believe the power of the Holy Spirit has not changed or diminished since the day of Pentecost; only, the faith of God's people has.

(I believe, only help my unbelief.) 

I hope this does not offend you. If the first feeling that erupts at these words is doubt, or fear, or anger, or repulsion, I understand--because those feelings were my own. There were so many things that I had been told God "doesn't really do anymore." So many passages from the Bible watered down and rationalized away. Because it was so much easier to rationalize than to believe.

But when God shows up, it's remarkable how quickly you stop rationalizing.

So I will not apologize for what I believe. My beliefs are founded on Scripture, and were proved and continue to be proven to me by the power of the Holy Spirit that drenched my life like a flood. I will not claim that every belief I hold is 100% correct--I'm much more careful now about what I claim to know. Paul said that in this world we only see truth through a darkened mirror, and I'm learning to be okay with that, too.

Because one day, we will see face to face. And when we see that face, in all its perfect majesty, we will finally understand the one thing that truly mattered.