Friday, February 23, 2018

Disciples of the Holy Spirit


Recently at Evening Prayer we sang a song, Dust and Ashes, with this lyric by Brian Wren:


Holy Spirit, come, walk with us tomorrow,
take us as disciples, washed and wakened by your calling.

I know what it means to be a disciple of Jesus—that is, to listen to his teachings and attempt to follow his example of letting love and service to others flow out of an intimate relationship with God. However, I had never thought about being a disciple of the Holy Spirit. What would such discipleship look like?

• Being a disciple of the Holy Spirit requires openness to the unexpected: You mean God is present there? You mean God wants me to do what? You mean I have to rethink what I’ve always believed?

• Being a disciple of the Holy Spirit requires traveling light, for your attachment to things will be consumed by a fire that cleanses and burns away the dross of life.

• Being a disciple of the Holy Spirit means entering into a loving relationship with the triune God, with the resulting call to creativity, obedience, and joyfulness.

Once thing is certain: Walking with the Holy Spirit as a guide means being AWAKE to possibility, to transformation, to the fullness of life. Boredom and complacency are not part of the vocabulary of disciples of the Holy Spirit!

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