Is God With Us or Not?

We tend to think that God is concerned only for the welfare of our "eternal souls," but that our daily, minute-to-minute lives are up to us---that, somehow, He's too busy to care about the little things, or that He is "above it all."

I have heard people say that God does not care whether we find a parking place or not, that we should not pray about such things.  That hurts me so much because I have experienced the God-Who-Cares-and Who-Is-Here in each moment of our lives.  The Holy Spirit is attentive to whatever is of present, practical importance to us.  If it's important to us, it's important to God.

I was first baptized in the Spirit through the prayer of a 22-year-old girl who had just had a baby and who continued to hemmorage for a number of days.  Her baby went home with her grandmother, while she stayed in the hospital.  I was her roommate, and she ended up praying that I would receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit, as she had done some years previously.

The prayer of that young girl changed my life forever:  from fearful to growing confidence, from lack of faith to growing faith, from feeling alone to growing knowledge that God was with me! 

After she prayed for me, her bleeding stopped, and she went home that day.  I was in the hospital for a few more days following surgery.  The first night I was home, I was praying after everyone else was asleep---around 9:30 pm.  Something kept telling me to call Dinette.  Now, I still do not call anyone at 9:30 at night, least of all a mother with a new baby!  Besides, I had nothing to say to her.  Why call?  But there was an insistent voice telling me to call her.  (This was my very first experience with the gentle but insistent nudging of the Spirit, so I was very resistent, thinking I was making it up myself.)

Finally, because I could do nothing else, I hesitantly called her number.  When she answered the phone, she said, "Wait a minute."  When she came back, she told me that her husband was out of town and that she had just gotten the baby to sleep and then put the nipples on the stove in a pan of water to sterilize.  Then she got in the shower and forgot about the pan on the stove.  The water had all but evaporated when she went into the kitchen to answer the phone.

Now, God knew what a disaster it would have been for this young mother to have melted all the nipples for her baby's nighttime feedings.  When I told her that I didn't have anything to say, but that something kept telling me to call her, we were both intensely grateful for the insistent Voice of a God-Who-Cares.  That was my first, and perhaps most important lesson in listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said that after He went back to the Father, He would send The Helper.  In His earthly sojourn, He was one man in the flesh.  When He sent the Holy Spirit, His spirit filled the earth at first in the 120 disciples who were filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus on earth.  Then the Spirit entered the 3000 observant Jews who were in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost---the harvest feast.  They went back to their towns and villages, probably like Dinette, telling of what had happened to them and praying for their friends and neighbors. 

God has no hands and feet but ours to do His work, as Mother Teresa reminded us.  But the Spirit in us prompts us to take care of the little things that make up our every-day life.  When we learn to become sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit, God can work through us.  The Spirit speaks in many ways: urges, promptings, uneasiness, stopping us from doing something we are about to do.  We have all known these things, but have not always paid attention to the results.  Later, we say, "Thank God I did.... or did not....."

It is important to realize that the Spirit will never tell us to do anything dishonest, unloving, selfish, etc....nor anything contrary to Scripture.  It helps when we can check our promptings with someone in the church that we trust, because God will give discernment to a fellow Christian if necessary to guide us.  However, when there is not time to check, and when the urging of the Spirit does not seem to violate love or to hurt someone, it is worth experimenting to find out if the Spirit is truly directing us or not. 

Nothing will so strengthen our faith and convince us of the tender presence of God and of His concern for the small moments of our lives as paying attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.