In the eighth chapter of Acts, it is reported that Peter and John went to pray with some recent converts in Samaria. That’s right, Samaria! Most self-respecting Jews avoided Samaria like the plague, since there was a long history of enmity between Jews and Samaritans. But these two go there intentionally.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit sent them, that’s why. That’s part of what makes the Holy Spirit so dangerous. One can never be sure where it will lead you, or even to whom it will lead you. Jesus said it was like the wind. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

Simply put, the Holy Spirit is not restricted by national borders or racial boundaries. It pays no attention whatsoever to the arbitrary distinctions that we seem to draw among ourselves. Just as God makes the sun shine on the good and evil alike, and sends rain upon both the righteous and the unrighteous, so, too, does the wind of the Spirit sweep across the land, whether it be inhabited by Jew or Samaritan.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing you can do to plan for the Spirit, or even to predict whether it will blow into your life like a gentle breeze or a window-rattling squall. About the best you can do is be willing to move when it does, and not be too choosy about where it ends up taking you, since you’re not the one doing the choosing.

However, one of the trademarks of the Holy Spirit is to give people a way back into relationship with each other. Maybe something like this has even happened to you. If you have ever found yourself being moved toward reconciliation with someone to whom you had previously been estranged, or offering a word of forgiveness that you had not originally planned to offer … if you have ever found yourself taking a risk that you didn’t think you had the courage to take, or reaching out to someone from whom you had intended to walk away … if you’ve ever felt like a fresh breeze just blew down the cluttered corridors of your life, blasting open locked doors and setting you free … then it’s a pretty safe bet that you were being carried in that direction by the winds of the Holy Spirit.

I dare say Peter and John must have felt that way when they suddenly found themselves laying hands on the very people with whom they wouldn’t even have shaken hands before. For centuries, the relationship between Jew and Samaritan resembled little more than chaotic estrangement. The only thing that seemed predictable was that these two groups couldn’t stand being together, much less coming together. That is, until the winds of the Holy Spirit swept in, like an unpredictable change in the weather, and brought them together.