{"id":346,"date":"2011-01-04T04:48:36","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T04:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=346"},"modified":"2011-01-04T04:48:36","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T04:48:36","slug":"where-to-find-the-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=346","title":{"rendered":"Where to Find the Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNow the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Genesis 1:2<\/font><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent much of my life wanting to experience the Spirit of God. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have traveled to mountains high above the earth and into caves deep below – just for the chance. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have sung my voice out with a thousand ecstatic worshippers in the stadium and I have laid prostrate silently with a few monks in the monastery – craving Him. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have spent hours immersed in the most beautiful and stunning scenes of creation and just as many surrounded by plain and unimpressive walls of brown sheetrock – looking for Him. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I have holes in my jeans from being on my knees in prayer, paper cuts from turning the pages of scripture, stacks of highlighted notes from attending seminars, information overload from reading books, and a sort of interpersonal numbness, if you will, from having listened to so many people who have tried to guide me to the mysterious place where I can reliably find this Spirit that is so Holy.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The journey has not been in vain, or without pleasure. But through it all, there is only one place where I have learned to find my experience of the Spirit of God most consistently.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

In the darkness.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I would have never read it this way before my journey, but not 2 verses into the Bible\u2019s story, actually pre-<\/em>day one of Creation, I am told where to find this least visible, most mysterious Person of the Trinity. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

In the darkness.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

According to this verse, right at the beginning, there were two things hanging out together over the deep waters of emptiness and formlessness that was earth at the time: Darkness, and the Spirit of God.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

In a poetic way (and the creation story is<\/em> recorded as poetry), I have found this to be practically true.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

If I can say that I have experienced the Holy Spirit at all in my life (and I hesitate to trust anyone who is a little too certain that they have), then it has been, more than anywhere else, over the deep, dark places of my life. As I l<\/font><\/font>ook honestly, the Spirit of God hovers most obviously \u201cover the waters\u201d of\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n