For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. Colossians 2:5 (NIV)

Faith Re-Birthed – The Spirit Series – Part 6

Go to  PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4  |  PART 5  |  PART 6  |  PART 7  |  PART 8

I have a friend that I love dearly. We live in different states, separated by a 12-hour drive. We see each other maybe once a year for a cup of tea or a meal. But every time I see her or talk to her over Skype, or via an endless stream of text messages, the separation disappears. We can pick up on conversations like we talked just yesterday or saw each other at school pick-up that afternoon. I miss her, but in some beautiful, mysterious way, she is with me.

It’s more than just feelings and memories and thoughts. We are all connected to each other on a level not seen by the human eye. If we could peel back our reality, we would see beautiful and delicate threads connecting us all to each other – what I do has a ripple effect on the world and vice versa, like a rock being thrown into the water. As we live and breathe, our movements send little waves down these threads towards others… everything we do impacts the space around us, influencing the space around others.

Imagine being part of the early church: the faith had changed, the way people worshipped had changed, who could worship had changed, the point had changed… radically. Or closer to the truth, it had been re-birthed. With this radical shift came radical reactions from all different sources. It would have been both thrilling and terrifying to start a community of faith that had never been done before, especially in their political and social climate. The resistance would have been huge, and the public backlash would have been personal and deeply felt.

I can imagine many of them spending nights in prayer, battling fear and discouragement, talking it over with friends in confidence, fighting worry and stress, daring to keep on moving forward and pave a new way. In the middle of all that, they received a letter from Paul, and he said to them, “I am with you…”

There may not be a more needed phrase in our world today. “I am with you.” You are not alone. Even though we may not be connected physically, we are present with one another in prayer and in love. In hope and in faith.

More than that, we are present with each other in our humanity. We are filled with the same breath, the same spirit; we all come from the same essence of life and being, God the divine. He is with us, and we are with him, and in turn, we are with each other.

It seems that many of us have forgotten just how connected we are to one another. The good news, the Gospel of Christ, was not about building up walls to create more separateness, but rather to tear those walls down, to bear each other's burdens, to love one another just as we love ourselves, just as we love God.

Not by might, nor by power… but by [his] Spirit (Zech 4:6).

Spirit – our common denominator, the connective tissue and the essence of life, the most sacred and the most ignored and forgotten element of all.

Can you see it? Do you hear it? Are you holding it in your heart? Breathing it in and out?

It was there when Adam woke up for the first time; when Zechariah looked out over a ruined city (and people) desperate to be rebuilt; as Sarah took matters into her own hands only to be overtaken by grace, as Mary gave birth to a revolutionary miracle; as Jesus blood flowed down a rough wooden cross and soaked the earth, sinking deep down into it and embracing our humanity; as he rose again and appeared to his friends – some who recognised him, others who doubted… yet all the while, Spirit was moving – whispering, working, connecting, being…

Go to Part 7 – Power Issues »
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