Driving the Story

When I started my undergraduate work at Shippensburg University, I was swooped up into a very unique group of people.  These folk played tag with fruits, turned dorm rooms into coffee shops, and went to Philadelphia for no reason other than cheesesteaks.  They knew how to be, and they lived out their lives and faith authentically.  After experiencing the Spirit of God through them, I moved from where I was to a new place.  I became different.

God has been working this way for a while.  As I've mentioned before, the Spirit of God in relationship with people causes movement.  In fact, the Spirit is a movement.

In the first chapter of Ezekiel, the titular character is witness to a vision involving four strange creatures.  These creatures, in addition to having four faces and a variety of other curious features, had four wheels.  Verse twenty says that the Spirit of God led the creatures, as the creatures' spirits were in these wheels.  There is some pretty heavy symbolism at work here.  The Spirit of God is causing movement.

Ezekiel is a prophet for God while Israel is in exile, separated from their land and temple.  For these imprisoned Israelites, to hear that the Spirit of God was on the move would have been comforting.  God is sending His spirit out before Him, and He's a Spirit of movement.  A movement is always what brings change.  That's why we call it a social movement.  Things were about to change.

Notice also that God's Spirit was interacting with the wheels in the vision to move them.  He was leading them.  The Spirit does His work in us via relationship.  So what does this mean for captive Israel?  It means that the Spirit of God was coming to form a relationship with them to move them from bondage to freedom.

This sounds much like the God I know.  When I experienced the Spirit through my friends and other ways at Shippensburg, I gained a new freedom.  When God sends His Spirit, it's to help us understand a new way of living.  A way that is free of some sort of slavery we're in, even if we don't know it.  We're moved to a new place, turning over a new page in our story.  If you're ready for a new page of life, the Spirit is hovering over the waters, waiting for the pen.