The Spirit

Kels tells me I write all the serious posts for our blog.  I looked back over them and realized she's right.  This is kind of upsetting because I swore to myself that I would only contribute to a blog with the condition that my posts remain decidedly un-serious.  So since I've failed miserably on that count, here we go again.

I have learned a lot of things about the Holy Spirit over the past six months or so.  I don't really know how it started, but it has been a knowledge born out of really nothing more than curiosity  -- or God working through my curiosity if you prefer.  Maybe instead of curiosity I should use the word disgust.  My newfound love for the Holy Spirit was truly born out of my disgust with televangelists filling their own wallets, with faith-healers deceiving people, with Americans exporting prosperity teaching to the poorest countries in the world (This should be required viewing for, I don't know, everyone).  My knowledge grew as I saw some of my students in Roseburg buying into this stuff -- after all, if I was going to teach Bible at a Christian school I needed to be informed about the kinds of things my students were influenced by and passionate about.  And as my morbid curiosity with these false teachings grew, God was giving me a greater desire to learn about the true role of his Spirit in my life.

I had (and still have) lots of questions.  Who is the Holy Spirit?  What is he supposed to do?  What does the Bible say about him?  What do other people and other denominations say about him?  How could I have a degree in Biblical and Theological Studies from a very good school and not know this stuff?

Part of my problem is that I'm a very rational thinker.  I tend to be quite cynical about anything that I perceive as being driven by feeling and emotion.  Rocking out for Jesus in order to create a certain atmosphere in church.  Vamping and dimming the lights and playing the perfect video on the giant projector screens during prayer.  Claiming to have a "word from the Lord" about something that I can't just read in the Bible for myself.  These things all fit into the same category for me.  In my sinfulness, I think I have more than a few things in common with Jesus' disciple Thomas.  Where is the proof?  How can I possibly believe what I can't see or at least prove with the scientific method?  What basis to I have to judge whether or not your "word from the Lord" is really a word from the Lord?

Through all these questions and all this confusion in my mind, God thought this would be perfect time to break through the shell I had put up and speak to me through the Holy Spirit.  And so, over the past few months, I have been learning to listen.  I won't lie and say that I have been able to do it consistently -- I know I am still a work in progress.  But I have tried more than ever before to be Spirit-led through this crucial and sometimes stressful part of our lives.

All of that was just the set-up for the story.  Long, I know, but I wanted to make sure this one thing was clear -- we have had a great couple days and the glory for that is our Father's alone.

Two days ago, we thought we had found an apartment.  We were relieved more than anything -- through five months of searching long distance and now a week searching from Jerusalem, we felt no closer to finding a place to live than the day we began.  We had a meeting with a guy, just because I don't really know how else to describe him, who sent us out to look at a few small apartments he owned.  One in particular seemed pretty great to us at the time, although I should mention that every potential apartment seems better when you have a very limited amount of time and are under the gun to find a place.  Truthfully, it was a perfectly adequate apartment -- sizeable and in a good location.  For Kels and I, our initial reaction was a good one.  We went back to The Guy's apartment and he told us he would knock the price down a bit if we could pay for six months up front.  He wanted to know if we had any money on us then, and I know we would have paid him if we had it (I did jokingly offer him three shekels but for some reason he declined).  We went back to where we were staying feeling pretty good about having a place to live and completely ready to move in the next day.

That night I couldn't sleep.  I would say that I don't know what it was but I do -- it was the Spirit speaking to me.  I didn't feel right about the whole thing at all, and I especially didn't feel right about The Guy.  I took out my computer and did a quick search for him on "the Google", as George. W. says (or was that John McCain?).  What I found was pretty amazing.  Acquitted of rape and convicted of arson in the U.S., The Guy fled to Israel in the 70s.  He then went to the U.K. where he got in all sorts of trouble for being a terrible landlord and decided to come back here.  He has been here ever since, renting out apartments and then never turning the hot water on (as we learned from a friend the next day).  You know, we probably would have been perfectly fine living in that apartment for six months.  But, thanks be to God, we don't have to find out.

Kels was frustrated when I told her that there was no way I would sign off on us moving into that apartment.  But I couldn't do it in good conscience.  So we started the process all over again yesterday morning, looking for places online, making phone calls and sending emails.  After about six or seven hours of this, I started to pray (I probably should have done those two things in reverse order).

Lord, I pray that you would help us find an apartment today.  We're really frustrated and it seems like every door that opens ends up being slammed shut for one reason or another.  But I know you love us and want us to be here so I just pray that you would give us a place to live now.  But more than anything, I pray that if we don't find an apartment today, and if we have to keep looking for weeks, and if doors continue to be slammed shut, that you would provide for our needs and give us peace.  Allow us to trust you that whatever happens is your will.

I'm not sure what I was going to pray after that because I was cut off by Kels saying something from the other room.  "I got an email back from one of these people!  It's the one with the apartment in Nachlaot."  I really don't know how to describe it, but I knew.  I felt a peace that I had not felt up to that point and I knew.  The Holy Spirit is a crazy and mysterious and amazing person.

This afternoon we moved into our new apartment in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem.  It's an incredible place -- large for a one-room with heat, nice furniture, a huge bathroom, in a great area, and with incredibly kind landlords.  Even better, we're not paying nearly what we thought we might have to.  God is good.



In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world. (John 16.33b)