Empowered to Heal: Pentecost Friday
A blessed Pentecost, friends! May you know the power of the risen and reigning Christ resting on you and working through you today, tomorrow, and always!
Welcome to the Pentecost Daybook series for these 8 days of celebrating (today through Trinity Sunday).
Look: The Space Between Triptych 16, Jane Guthrie - Source
Listen: You can listen to my playlist for Pentecost in its entirety on Spotify: Pentecost 2020.
Read: Psalm 40, 54; Ecclesiastes 5:1-7; Galatians 3:15-22; Matthew 14:22-36
Pray: Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful,
and enkindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Amen.
Do: Throughout the week I'll be sharing excerpts from spiritual teacher Henri Nouwen as well as my own brief reflections about the way the Holy Spirit empowers us to live in peace, freedom, and power. Read, reflect, journal, and share your own responses with the rest of us in the comment section below.
Empowered to Heal
"In and through Jesus we come to know God as a powerless God, who becomes dependent on us. But it is precisely in this powerlessness that God's power reveals itself. This is not the power that controls, dictates, and commands. It is the power that heals, reconciles, and unites. It is the power of the Spirit. When Jesus appeared people wanted to be close to him and touch him because "power came out of him" (Luke 6:19).
It is this power of the divine Spirit that Jesus wants to give us. The Spirit indeed empowers us and allows us to be healing presences. When we are filled with that Spirit, we cannot be other than healers."
The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen
The Spirit of Jesus Listening In Us
"Listening in the spiritual life is much more than a psychological strategy to help others discover themselves. In the spiritual life the listener is not the ego, which would like to speak but is trained to restrain itself, but the Spirit of God within us. When we are baptised in the Spirit - that is, when we have received the Spirit of Jesus as the breath of God breathing within us - that Spirit creates in us a sacred space where the other can be received and listened to. The Spirit of Jesus prays in us and listens in us to all who come to us with their sufferings and pains.
When we dare to fully trust in the power of God's Spirit listening in us, we will see true healing occur."
Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen
And this is where we get to my deepest heart, friends. That we could be a healing presence in this world - and actually already exist in this power - stuns my heart into worship. What a gift to live within the healing power of the Creator of the universe, the Messiah Jesus, and the great Comforter Spirit.
You might wonder how this can be true when it seems you still require so much healing for yourself? I understand this question and find deep consolation that in the same way that it's by Jesus's stripes we're healed, it's our own wounds and weakness that make space for the healing of others. This is what Henri Nouwen means by the description "wounded healer".
Be encouraged again by Nouwen's words: It is this power of the divine Spirit that Jesus wants to give us. The Spirit indeed empowers us and allows us to be healing presences. When we are filled with that Spirit, we cannot be other than healers.
Peace, friends,
Tamara
p.s., If you'd find it helpful to have another person discern with you what the Spirit is speaking in you and how you might be called to use your voice, that's what I do as a Spiritual Director. You can message me here or through the contact form at my Spiritual Direction webpage for more information: https://www.tamarahillmurphy.com/spiritual-direction