As I think through some circumstances in my life that simply seem impossible to resolve I have begun to preach to myself, "I believe in the Holy Spirit." It has become my anthem this year and I pray that it becomes part of my life. I should never say to myself, "That cannot happen. It is too difficult." Or I cannot see a single person as beyond the hope of the gospel thinking, "He will never be able to see it," or "She could never comprehend such difficult things." God made us all to revel in his glory. He made us all for relationships with him and with each other. Who am I to say any person or situation is beyond the power of God. It is by his Holy Spirit that he transforms lives and works incredible faith into his people.
I am a type A personality. I organize everything in my mind before putting it onto paper or into action. I plan everything out before making decisions. I need to see a clear path to success before taking any action. This does not lend itself well to trusting God because I tend to lean on my own ability to understand. But God is using seminary to break down this trust in myself and give me opportunities to test my conviction that "I believe in the Holy Spirit."
God has blessed me with a gift to understand things and make comprehensive connections quickly. So far this has been a great blessing to my family during seminary because it helps me accomplish more in the limited amount of time we have available for studying. However, my Hebrew class has been somewhat frustrating to me; not because I haven't been able to understand Hebrew, but because it is not organized in the way my mind finds useful. It has been a struggle to do the heavy lifting for the class without seeing the value in the way it is presented. But two people challenged my prideful assumptions. Andy Naselli made a comment to me at a picnic that learning Hebrew is a "worship of dependence." While we may not see the value of it in the midst of it, we do the hard work trusting that the Holy Spirit will help us endure and at some future date it will begin to transform into more of a worship of praise experience. It was a reminder that I can't fit everything into my mind's compartments, but I need to "believe in the Holy Spirit" to honor God through it.
Similarly, during class with John Piper, as I was marveling at what a privilege it was to learn from such a great mind he confessed that it is such a struggle for him to write. He slows down so much and puts so much thought into every word because he wants every word to be fruitful. If John Piper struggles that much to produce something of value for the church, what hope do I have? Why should I continue? My ability to quickly comprehend complex truths is nothing to boast in when I don't use it in a way that depends on God to help me do the heavy lifting and produce something of value. I need to remind myself that "I believe in the Holy Spirit" to dig deep into his word to come away changed and prepared for ministry, not simply adding more knowledge to my mental library.
So where has this conviction led our family today? As our youngest daughter continues through our second year of life we have decided that we are ready to add another child to our family. We chose to once again pursue a child through adoption, but wondered what the best option for our family is. Adoptions take a lot of time and cost a lot of money, neither of which we have much of. How are we going to pay for it when our checking account has been shrinking to pay for school? How are we going to find time to travel to pick up a child when we have very small windows of time in between school and work? As we considered our options we realized that we started to go down the path that seemed to make more sense to our concrete-sequential minds; the cheapest and most time controlled options were our preference. But God was having none of that. He wanted to remind us that "We believe in the Holy Spirit."
Through circumstances that I will share more of over the coming months God has given us a passion for children at an orphanage in Uganda. We know people in Uganda and have met others who have adopted from there. We are convinced that this is where God would have us, even though it is going to cost money that God will have to provide and it needs to be timed in only a way one who is in control of all time can arrange. But we are done trying to force God to work according to our own plan. We are ready to see the God do what seems impossible. We are convinced of this: "We believe in the Holy Spirit."
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