HUG is for the Hug U God: my extremely non-theological thoughts on the Holy Spirit!

We have been learning in Bethel Sozo Training that people usually relate to Father God like they do their earthly fathers, to Jesus as they do their siblings and/or peers, and they view the Holy Spirit the way they do their mothers.

Growing up in my family with four siblings and an absentee dad, my warmest memories are of my soft, gentle mom.  I grew up under the wings of her unconditional love.  Even so, I find myself talking rarely to the Holy Spirit when I pray.  Most often, it’s Daddy.  So I've been asking God to teach me about the Holy Spirit since I am obviously lacking.

Karen Johnson asked us last week in Destiny Healing Rooms training class, “what is the Holy Spirit?”  When I think of “spirit” I think of a presence.  So God’s presence is the Holy Spirit.  Can you talk to a presence?  But Karen taught us that the Holy Spirit is a person.  Ah, that puts it more clearly now – I can talk to and with a person.

So, if the Holy Spirit is that motherly, warm and nurturing part of who God is, then I think he (or she?) is the Hug of God.  

Holy Spirit is the one you smell when you enter the House of Prayer and look around for candles burning where there are none, because the fragrance is so thick and warm. 

Holy Spirit is the joy that bubbles up on the inside and makes you laugh like Sue Colucci, or cry and smile at the same time.

Holy Spirit give you that “I’m home” feeling as you come through the side doors into the church after a rough day at work. 

Like my mom, Holy Spirit knows the secret longings of my heart, and he sends treasures my way just when I need them in the forms of gifts, hugs, words and people – just what and when I needed.  Holy Spirit tells me I am known, and loved.  He wraps himself around me like a handmade quilt (He is, after all, the Comforter!), and I breathe him in and relax in the safe refuge of his caress.

Then, after receiving healing and comfort from my wounds and disappointments, I get to pass on that Hug of God to you!

He’s the Hug U God.  He’s the Holy Spirit.

My Prayer Today....

Daddy, I want to be your resting place, my heart a place where you are comfortable to hang out.  I want to love the people, things and places you love.  I want my heart to look so much like yours that you enjoy being there, feel like it’s home, where you can sit back and sigh and say “I’m home”, just like I feel so often in the House of Prayer.

Daddy, teach me when I make you uncomfortable by the things I keep in my heart, like fear, bitterness, unforgiveness.  Open my ears to listen like one being taught ( Isaiah 50:4).

Daddy, Jesus, Holy Spirit, today I ask you to set my nerve endings on fire – that I would sense you through all five senses today in an acute, amazing, super-sensitive way.  I can make it to the end only if I can see, hear, taste, feel, smell your presence!

Psalm 132:8  “Arise, O Lord, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.  May your priests (me!) be clothed with righteousness; may your saints (me!) sing for joy!”

Releasing Hope

As vegetation is dying

Leaves breaking free

And falling to the earth

I collected hope this morning.

I picked up acorns

As I walked today,

Each a symbol of hope,

The potential of new life.

As I walk amidst

The dying lives around me

I remember the acorns,

The hope I carry in both pockets.

In the face of death

I empty my pockets

Releasing hope to the hopeless,

Calling things that are not as though they are.

Resting Place

When Zaccheus had you to dinner

He must have been embarrassed to bring you in

To his clutter and evident preoccupation

With the love of money, and fear of lack.

But you came to his heart anyway

And he watched as your eyes roved about

Touching the furnishings and disarray

Cluttering up his life.

And he fell in love with this Jesus

Who loved him enough to come sit awhile in his garbage,

The radiant Son of the Living God

Somehow seeing the gold inside of an ugly man.

After that first visit, he couldn’t clean house fast enough!

He threw out old treasures,

Abandoned love of money and fear of lack

To create a suitable resting place for God.

Arise, O Lord and come to your resting place,

My heart laid bare and open for you to dwell!

A heart that loves the things, people and places you love,

A suitable home for the heart of my God.

He Chose Me!

I remember many years ago, in gym class, watching the athletes choosing their teams.  Watching the team pool dwindle, finding myself last or next to last, the one the team gets stuck with at the end.  Zaccheus, I imagine, was like that last pick. 

“Oh, no, we got stuck with him last time!  It has to be your turn now.  He can’t hit a ball for nothin’!”

So, he didn’t even try anymore, to fit in, to be on anyone’s team.  But he found a way to get even.  He made himself a big shot by stealing people’s money as the county tax collector.

You can imagine that when Jesus stopped and set his sights on Zaccheus that day in Jericho, everyone was shocked, perhaps dismayed at Jesus’ choice of company.

But think about how this rejected, unwanted man must have felt to be Jesus’ first choice that day.

“There must be some mistake. Does he really mean me?  He chose me! He’s coming home with me today!”

And knowing that God picked him out of a crowd, chose to spend the day at his home, changed everything for Zaccheus.  “Just for the chance to be with you, to belong to you, I will give up my lifestyle, and pay back four times what I’ve stolen.  Just because you chose me.  Just because you believe there is something worth loving in me, I will be that valuable person you somehow see through all the crud.”

So we, too, get to be like Jesus, to look past boorish behavior, smelly clothes, obnoxious words, and pick the Zaccheuses of this world to befriend, share a meal, sit down and visit with them, because we see what Jesus saw when he looked up in the tree that day in Jericho so many years ago.

I want to love what you love.

I want to hate what you hate.

Want to hold dear to my heart,

All that you hold in yours.

Help me to see what you see.

Help me to hear what you hear.

To hold dear to my heart,

All that you hold in yours.