Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

• Psalm 51:11

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

• Romans 5:5

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

• Romans 14:17-18

“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

• Leviticus 19:18

“Also in recent times I have often been occupied with the question of how one can really explain what we usually call the deadening of strong impressions over the course of time. … The answer that this is a self-protection device of nature seems to me inadequate. I believe, rather, that it may also be a matter of a clear, sober comprehension of one’s own limited duties and possibilities, and thus of the possibility of real love of neighbor. As long as the imagination is whipped up and excited, love of neighbor remains something very vague and general. Today I can look more calmly at people, at their misery and neediness, and thus serve them better. Instead of deadening, I would rather speak of clarification; naturally, however, it often remains a task of changing the one into the other. But in such situations I don’t believe we need to reproach ourselves about the Fact that over the course of time feelings are no longer so hot and intense. To be sure, one must always remain conscious of the danger that one will lose sight of the whole thing, and even during clarification, strong feelings must remain alive.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You (devotion for July 24, devotions compiled from his writings)

I have talked to many Christians that had a strong emotional experience when they were a teenager and they never felt that way again.  Others had small spurts where they got that feeling again and then it was gone.  But I have known some that were on a slow burn, with the fire of the Holy Spirit for the rest of their lives.

I had that feeling as a senior in high school.  When I was asked to join a lay-witness mission team, I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit once or twice every month.  There have been many instances, starting, it seemed, at Asbury College in Kentucky.  Other moments at Auburn University, the University of Tennessee, and baptism on the beaches of California.  But the Holy Spirit is not limited to one place.

But then as I got older, people talked about the deadening process.

But Bonhoeffer does not agree with that.

My wife, as she got older and her body started failing, she had a deadening process.  I would talk to her like I was a cheerleader, and she was the team, but she would look at me and say, “Do you not understand me when I say that I am dead inside?”  I understood, but I did not accept it.

But that is deadening.  My wife hardly ever felt pain.  That part of her body was one of the first things to deaden, and God blessed her in that she did not suffer with the pain that others in her condition suffered.

But to sustain the joy of the Holy Spirit for an extended period of time?  I know that our new bodies in the next life will be immortal, but in this life, can we sustain such Joy?  High burn?  All the time?  The Holy Spirit’s presence being so real that you can take His pulse?

The people who have sustained the Joy of the Holy Spirit have been those with a slower burn, a lasting burn.

Yes, I do not feel that feeling that I felt 55 years ago, but I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.  It is something like what Bonhoeffer speaks about.  With that slow burn, I can see the needs of others better.  I can empathize and sympathize better.  I can screw up too, but all in all I am in touch with my neighbor more.

The Lord gives us what we need when we need it.  We do not need the roaring fire.  From my old scouting days, I quickly learned that the small fire with deep embers is the best fire to bring heat to the body.  A roaring fire, and you must back away.  Very little of your body gets warm while the rest freezes.

Let us be content with the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is with us.  And we can recognize that different feeling that we once had, and have it more sustaining.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.