Shawn referenced my favorite Bible verse in the sermon this week: Genesis 1:2. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” There is so much packed into this small verse. As we explore the Holy Spirit over the next few weeks, this is the image that is always first in my mind – the indistinguishable Spirit hovering over the waters. Much like the world He was about to create, I see the Holy Spirit as formless, able to shift and move into and out of our lives as we seek Him more. In this verse, and indeed in my own life, the Spirit of God is holding chaos in check and about to make something beautiful out of what could look, to anyone else, like a mess.
The Holy Spirit is both infinitely knowable and infinitely unknowable; the perfect image of the Trinity that both encourages and confounds Christians and non-Christians alike. When I think about the Holy Spirit, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and confused. Those are the times that I retreat to that verse in Genesis – a Spirit that can and will hover above the deepest, darkest parts of who I am and help me transform into what God would have me be.