I can barely describe the feeling. Breath of God. Helper. Comforter. Advocate. Friend. He is the Holy Spirit, and when I sense His nearness, it’s incredible.

However, I haven’t always known God’s Spirit in this way. Admittedly, I used to think the Holy Spirit was this sort of ethereal vapor, magical, intangible, not a person but a thing—a sparkling mist sent from God to unite us with Him. Maybe this was because when I would sense the Holy Spirit, I would experience a physical sensation like goose bumps, where the hair on my arms would stand straight up, or I would feel a wonderful shivering down my back as if He just walked past me. These sensations would leave me with a feeling of joy and indescribable peace.

But years ago, I engaged the Word of God with a deeper desire to understand the Holy Spirit more. I was so desperate to know more about the Person of the Holy Spirit. I remember exactly where I was praying when I asked Him to teach me. I cried out to Him, “I don’t want to miss a thing about You. Teach me everything!” During that season of my life, God illuminated scripture after scripture with holy yellow highlights, allowing me to see and know the Holy Spirit not as an “it” but as a person.

I love the Holy Spirit, and I never tire of talking about Him. I will never forget the joy that welled up within me when the Holy Spirit touched my life in a way that allowed me to know an intimate friendship with Him—I haven’t been the same since. I attest; I am forever ruined for anything less than the majesty of His presence. Driven by a holy obsession with the Spirit of God, I have sought to be a better friend to Him.

How have you experienced the Holy Spirit? About ten years ago, I had a profound encounter with the Holy Spirit while on a week-long retreat at Casowasco Camp and Retreat Center, seated on the Owasco Lake in Upstate New York. I had taken a blanket down by the lake early one morning and sat beside the water’s edge to pray and read my daily devotion. While I was down there, seated in front of the cross, another woman from my lodge came down and asked if she could join me. We talked for a few minutes before I asked her how I could pray for her, and she asked me the same. There we sat, both of us kneeling with our eyes closed and our hands in a posture of receiving. We were wholly focused on our Creator God as we rested in His presence. At the close of our prayer, a bubble of pure and utter joy burst inside of me, and I couldn’t help but sit there with a smile plastered across my face from ear to ear. I turned to the woman seated beside me and I said, “Did you feel Him?” She nodded, and I kid you not, we burst out into holy laughter. I mean it. There we sat like silly teenage girls, belly laughing until we had side stitches. We were caught up in such a sweet moment of heavenly delight that was none other than the Holy Spirit Himself.

Recently, I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit during a time of worship, where I felt like He was dancing around me in my prayer closet. It was in that space where I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I was supposed to write down a word I had received earlier in the day and give it to a dear friend.

Listen, each of us will recognize the Holy Spirit differently. One friend of mine indicates that she will pick up on a certain sweet fragrance in the air when she becomes aware of His presence. My grandfather used to tell me that he would hear what sounded like a wind chime when he would become aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Exhilarating and adventurous. Those are the two words I use to describe my intimate friendship with the Holy Spirit. Often, our friendship feels like a rollercoaster ride, with all the ups and downs, twists and turns that I rarely ever see coming. Friends, there is never a dull moment when walking with the Holy Spirit. If you had told me nine years ago that my family and I would leave the only place we had ever known and move 1200 miles across the country to Springdale, AR so I could take a new pastoral appointment, I would have said, “That sounds like crazy talk!” But I am here to say, I do love this journey the Lord has afforded me to walk out, and I am learning how to take bigger steps into the unknown every single day.

So how about you? Are you experiencing an intimate friendship with the Holy Spirit? Are you stepping out in obedience to what you sense Him calling you to, even when it sounds like absolute craziness? To be sure, it is a real step-by-step journey, but remember, obedience is your portion and the outcome is God’s. Today, I encourage you to place your hand into the hand of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to lead you because He always has the best adventure waiting for you, which just might include a dose of silly teenage girl belly laughter!

On this journey with you ~

Pastor Jen