Imagine!

Have you ever been hit in the head with the obvious? Something you’ve known all along that’s suddenly a completely new thought?

That’s what happened to me recently.

Having read Richard Foster’s Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home, I am now working through Celebration of Discipline. In both, he talks about the importance of using our God-given imagination to connect with our Heavenly Father.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

As I pondered my prayer life and my relationship with God I saw my ‘imaginings’ of the Holy Spirit in a new light. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find it hard to wrap my mind around this third member of the God-Head. As a result, I have inadvertently adopted two mental pictures of Him.

One is from the classic movie The Ten Commandments. Sometimes I picture the Holy Spirit moving like the green fog of the Passover. Silently infiltrating, working God’s mysteries in peoples’ lives.

My second mental image comes from an original Star Trek episode, Metamorphosis. An alien, dubbed The Companion, cares for a man marooned on its planet. When The Companion communes with the man, it surrounds him in a wonderful, healing cloud of shimmering energy.

Extrapolate from there.

When I pray, I envision the Holy Spirit like a mist, without limits, entering any place, person or situation. Or, I see Him as a shimmering force, surrounding and filling people with His glorious presence.

Though both may describe the Holy Spirit in some limited way, they miss a truth I have newly realized.

My part.

For reasons we may never fully grasp, God has determined to work in this world through human beings. I’m sure you’ve hear the ‘we are his hands’ talk.

We are also His conduit.

Yes, the Holy Spirit can move like the mist. But He has chosen to move only when and where we send Him.

Yes, the Holy Spirit does surround and fill us. But only when we invite Him.

These are obvious truths I have seemingly always known yet, suddenly, they are new!

I must carry Him to the sick child in the hospital. I must send him with the missionary. My political leaders may never be impacted with Holy Spirit's wisdom unless I ask Him to do that.

And here's the shocking flip side:

If I don’t, He can’t!

If you don’t, He won’t!

What a responsibility. What a privilege.

What an amazing God we serve!

Jayne E. Self, is a Canadian mystery author.

Visit her on Facebook or at JayneSelf.com