The Familiar Stranger

The Holy Spirit makes the impractical practice-able. This is what the gifts of the Holy Spirit are all about: making the totally impractical (the supernatural, the miraculous, the gospel ministry of Jesus) not only possible (in extreme situations by super-spiritual people) but practiceable (by ordinary people tabernacled by an extraordinary God).

The Church … can be in the way of God, but it never will cease to be also the way to God. Henri Nouwen

Rich Villodas defines trauma as "the state of woundedness and the story that comes from living in that state." Trauma is not just being wounded. It's the story that arises from living wounded.

Creativity, which is a true and fitting expression of the Spirit's power, will always carry within it the two distinctive characteristics Mihaly noted in those Chicago painters. Those living in the Spirit's power will operate in flow, a free state of timeless creative focus, and they will be unattached to the fruit of their creative labor, driven instead by the act of co-creating in partnership with God.

What if God is speaking to you far more than realise? What if the majority of divine instructions or encounters in your life to date are missed connections-magic moments that could have been, but the Lord passed right by you?

Maybe God whispers because it's the only way he can get what he wants most, what was lost in Eden: to walk with you and me in familiar intimacy that we might know God as he truly is and discover ourselves as we truly are in his presence.

In other words, encouragement is prophecy by what you can see, and prophecy is encouragement by what only God can see.

Many people-not all, but many respond to bad teaching with a yawn. But many people respond to an unmet request for healing by redefining the God they pray to. Some holding this book have a story of healing. Others have a story of suffering. And plenty of us have both.

Some use the term "Spirit-filled" to refer to churches most active in their gathered worship-communities enthusiastic in their praise, wild in their worship, and charismatic in their practice. But maybe we've got it backwards? Maybe the "Spirit-filled" community is the one most active in their scattered worship? The life of the Holy Spirit sends us out in power, commissioning us to live in this world in a way that spreads rumors of another world.

And that's when we've gotten it right: when the way we speak about Jesus looks distinctly like the one we're speaking about.

Where are you living dishonestly? Where are you compartmentalizing your spirituality under the guise of being polite? Who do you think you're loving by hiding this part of you? I gently challenge you that while speaking up out of love for others might terrify you at first, it will make you more free and more alive in the end.

If you do not regularly practice service to those in need in your local area, something essential is missing in your discipleship to Jesus, and it is highly unlikely that you'll grow in your God-given identity as his witness

Whether we like it or not, we are going to share in the world's sufferings. Suffering is not evenly distributed-we all suffer in different ways and to varying degrees. Will our share in the world's suffering embitter us or soften us, close us off or open us up?