The Practicality of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is certainly supernatural, but He is also very practical. The supernatural things He does are always for a purpose (although, admittedly, we don't always know what that purpose is at the time).

Furthermore, I think sometimes the Holy Spirit is so active in our lives that we don't give Him credit for the things He's doing. For instance, my small group recently doubled in size. I could call that a coincidence, or I could observe that people have been drawn to our group because of the Holy Spirit's presence!

And this week we planted two more small groups (a men's group on Wednesdays and a ladies' group on Saturdays). And the most exciting part to me is that I'm not the one leading these groups! Other people are catching vision from God and running with it!

Tonight we held our first men's group meeting, and four people were able to attend. I'm reminded of Zechariah 4:10 that says "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin..." (NLT). Certainly, we could sense the Lord rejoicing!

And here's where the practicality of it all comes back into play. People were moving in the power of the Holy Spirit and not even realizing it! That's how practical He is! My one friend started moving in the gift of a "word of wisdom" as the Holy Spirit supernaturally gave him the right words to speak to another man in the group. When I pointed it out, he said, "Wow, thanks--I was wondering if my words had any purpose." We all started to laugh because the rest of us knew how profound his advice actually was!

Then, as I mentioned something about the trials in our lives being used by God to perfect us, another man in our group had a vision and didn't even realize it! He said, "You know, as you were saying that, I started picturing a swordsmith hammering a sword into the perfect shape so that it's balanced just right and won't break in a battle."

I said, "You weren't just picturing that on your own--the Holy Spirit was giving you a vision! I'm glad you shared that!" A surprised smile started to spread across his face as if to say, "God gave me a vision?? Wow!"

Sometimes we don't realize just how active the Holy Spirit is in our lives, and frankly, it robs glory from our Father in heaven! We need to start encouraging one another to see the Holy Spirit's activity in their lives so that we can all notice Him in our own lives! We should recognize Him in the practical things of life and not just in our events and Christian meetings. The Holy Spirit wants to be your everyday companion in all things. He's the Guide and the Comforter. He is our Advocate. He's the Living Water that should be overflowing from each of our lives! He empowers us, He leads us, He helps us, and He ministers through us!

So I want to challenge you in the coming days to look for the activity of the Holy Spirit in your everyday life. He's probably moving at this moment right under your nose!