Did you realize that the word “conspire” literally means “to breathe together”? Take a deep breath. Now let it out again. There you go! You just launched a conspiracy.
We don’t often think about the air we breathe—except, perhaps, when the smog levels or pollen count are high. But contained within this planet’s atmosphere is the same air that humankind has been breathing since the dawn of time. In other words, chances are that, at some point in your life, you have breathed the same air that Abraham breathed, and Moses, and King David, and Isaiah, and even Jesus himself!
In the Hebrew, the word for “breath” is the same word for “spirit.” Hence, when God formed us by taking a lump of clay and breathing life into it, the idea is that we received God’s Spirit. And on Pentecost, God breathed life into a group of frightened disciples, and gave life to the church!
Of the three persons of the Trinity, it’s probably the Holy Spirit that we have the hardest time defining. Most of us, for example, can at least begin to describe the other two. God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, who makes the sun shine and the rain fall … God the Son, who was human like us—our savior, teacher, helper, and friend. But how would you describe God the Holy Spirit to a Sunday School classroom of second graders? Even Jesus seemed to have difficulty with that one. “The Spirit blows where it chooses,” he told Nicodemus, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”
But while it may be hard to define, it is not hard to know when you are experiencing it. It’s like a breath of fresh air suddenly blowing into your life. If you have ever found yourself speaking with eloquence that you did not know you possessed … or taking risks that you did not think you had the courage to try … or reaching out to someone you had intended to walk away from … then you can be pretty sure that the Holy Spirit is breathing upon you.
Take a deep breath. Now let it out again. This is God’s moment-by-moment gift to us. You can call it ordinary air, if you like. But since none of us can live long without it, I prefer to think of it as the Holy Spirit—the very breath of God!
We don’t often think about the air we breathe—except, perhaps, when the smog levels or pollen count are high. But contained within this planet’s atmosphere is the same air that humankind has been breathing since the dawn of time. In other words, chances are that, at some point in your life, you have breathed the same air that Abraham breathed, and Moses, and King David, and Isaiah, and even Jesus himself!
In the Hebrew, the word for “breath” is the same word for “spirit.” Hence, when God formed us by taking a lump of clay and breathing life into it, the idea is that we received God’s Spirit. And on Pentecost, God breathed life into a group of frightened disciples, and gave life to the church!
Of the three persons of the Trinity, it’s probably the Holy Spirit that we have the hardest time defining. Most of us, for example, can at least begin to describe the other two. God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, who makes the sun shine and the rain fall … God the Son, who was human like us—our savior, teacher, helper, and friend. But how would you describe God the Holy Spirit to a Sunday School classroom of second graders? Even Jesus seemed to have difficulty with that one. “The Spirit blows where it chooses,” he told Nicodemus, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”
But while it may be hard to define, it is not hard to know when you are experiencing it. It’s like a breath of fresh air suddenly blowing into your life. If you have ever found yourself speaking with eloquence that you did not know you possessed … or taking risks that you did not think you had the courage to try … or reaching out to someone you had intended to walk away from … then you can be pretty sure that the Holy Spirit is breathing upon you.
Take a deep breath. Now let it out again. This is God’s moment-by-moment gift to us. You can call it ordinary air, if you like. But since none of us can live long without it, I prefer to think of it as the Holy Spirit—the very breath of God!
posted by Dr. Robert Crilley at
8:28 PM
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