And take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication (Ephesians 6:17-18).
In my "stack of stuff" I found the remnants of a post by S.M. Hutchens that is eloquent in its expression of the presence and working of Holy Spirit. It coincides with my thinking, so I wanted to share the following paragraph with my faithful readers:
But I am more confident now that the Holy Spirit, while mysterious, infinitely subtle, and often counter-intuitive is for all that no fool. The gabbling of enthusiasts is not his favored means of communication, nor is he a private gentleman. If he has a message for one who speaks for him, it meets what he has already placed in many of his own, and agrees. He is a friend of reason because he invented it, a friend of counsel, because he is eternally in counsel himself (some would even say, and not without reason, that he is Counsel), and a friend to the wisdom of age and experience, for he is the one who has given it, presumably for use toward his ends. (The presence of these virtues in the church virtually eclipses, I believe, the need for much of what is commonly regarded as charismatic gift. Since they are themselves part of the concrete and enduring telos of the Spirit's work, there is good reason to suspect that the overuse and overvaluation of charismata--which may indeed be from God--is also, in whatever age and in whatever church they appear, a sign of spiritual infantilism.)
Throughout church history, there have been many who felt, and thus were convinced, that the Spirit was speaking to them when the Spirit was saying nothing, they were victims of their own delusions. Hutchens' words are sound teaching that agrees with the teaching of the Bible.
Our Father's Blessings,
Tom
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