Tenchi
Member
I see the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in my life every time he reminds me of God's word as he guides me through the various circumstances of life, or he prompts me to submit to his control, and effortlessly dissolves temptation as I do. When I move toward selfishness and remember to yield myself to the Spirit's control, and then do so, I encounter a liberty from myself, from my selfishness, that I just can't achieve from my own human resources of will-power or endurance. When I'm baffled as to how to proceed in conversation with someone and I consciously surrender to the Spirit's control, trusting that as I do, he will order my thinking, feelings and words, I often look back on the conversation with astonishment at how the Spirit so profoundly, subtly and naturally used me to communicate himself, the Spirit of Christ, to the other person. When my natural impulse to withdraw from others, to indulge my natural introversion and stay silent, and ignore others around me, or retreat from opportunities and responsibilities for spiritual leadership is overcome by the Spirit's work in me, I find myself being bold when I would naturally withdraw, stable when I would otherwise be nervous and uncomfortable, and irenic when I would have been agitated and defensive. This change, though, happens so naturally that I don't typically notice that it has, my recognition of the change only occurring in retrospect, or when another person remarks on it. And so it goes, the life and work of the Spirit in me acting such that the past torturous, fleshly effort to be godly for God is gone and in its place I have an increasingly surprising daily experience of the Spirit in which he demonstrates to me his transforming power, moving me into God's will and way without any of the exhausting, strenuous labor that used to mark my Christian living.
