Dear People Who Keep Company With God,

I believe the metaphor of the Holy Spirit as a dove is one of the highest revelations of the Spirit. After all, that is the way He came upon Jesus. Thinking of the Holy Spirit like a natural dove, quiet, calming and peaceful certainly has its place, but we need to keep in mind that in the Scriptures peace is not the absence of war. It tells us the God of peace will soon crush Satan under our feet (Rom. 16:20).  Jesus is the Prince of Peace and the dove is a symbol of God’s government (Is. 9:7). His government has militancy about it when it comes to the kingdom of darkness.

Have you ever wondered what the disciples were expecting when they were waiting for “the promise of the Father” in Acts 1? Do you think they had a picture of the dove coming upon Jesus at His baptism? Or do you think they were expecting the Spirit to come in the way we read in Acts 2, as a rushing mighty sounding wind and fiery tongue-like flames causing such a raucous commotion that observers thought it was a drunken party?

In the book,Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson, he says, “Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surrounds Him.”

I have run into some wild geese on the golf course and they are gawky, wing flapping, slightly unnerving acting, and messy. They give very little warning before they move, charge at you or take off flying. You definitely want to keep your distance when they have little ones around.

There is an element to the Holy Spirit that is unpredictable, wild, loud and even somewhat ungraceful acting.  He is always a dove, but He does have a wild goose streak in Him a mile long and when you embrace that part of the Holy Spirit you open your lives up to some pretty unpredictable, unnerving and messy times, but it is very fulfilling and fruitful. You will learn to love it and never be totally satisfied with the more orderly spiritual seasons.

In the book, Thinking in Tongues, by James K.A. Smith, he says, “if Pentecost becomes our hermeneutics, not just an event we recall but a way we see and interpret things, it will require us to have a “radical openness to God”. We have to give room for God to be the wild goose honking and flapping around all our best-laid plans and understandings. Pentecost beckons us, like Peter, to have the boldness to interpret what we see, as unexpected as it is, and is able to say, “This thing you see—this is God! You may see a street filled with drunk people, but we see the future of God unfolding right before our eyes.”

The disciples may not have expected their introduction to the outpoured Holy Spirit to come off like a drunken brawl, but it did, and I am so glad they did not say, “This is not how He came on Jesus at His baptism,” and reject God!

I will forever love the Holy Spirit resting upon me like a dove. It continues to transform and empower me to release His peace and power to those around me. It is our daily inheritance from the Father.  At the same time my heart longs for the times when the Wild Goose shows up and wrecks my plans, agenda and theology. We were made for the Wild Goose Chase!

Many Blessings, BW

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