The Holy Spirit is off the Reservation

When I was younger, I used to watch a lot of western movies on television. It seems to me there were a lot more of them on in those days. They would probably be rated G if there had been ratings, but I digress.


In those western movies, there would often be some kind of conflict between the cowboys and the indians...uhhh native Americans. As you may recall from your study of American history, as the white men moved west, they relegated the indians to reservations. The indians where told where they were allowed to live. They had to stay on the reservation. Sometimes, in those old westerns, a restless, indian brave would take off in search of adventure, a better life, or sometimes just to hunt for food. When that happened, the brave was said to be "off the reservation" meaning that he was not in the place he had been relegated to by the powers that be.


Most of you can already see where we are going with this. The rest of you can just keep reading and I will try to explain the point as clearly and as briefly as possible. For those of you who read these pages regularly, you are probably hoping it will be brief and not expecting too much in the way of clarity. (My own little joke...I hope!)


In churches today we have generally relegated the Holy Spirit to some place where He is not supposed to make too much noise because we have our reservations (pun intended) about what "church" should look like. Church should be done "decently and in order." We even have scripture on that. (1 Corinthians 14:40) The only rub there is we have our ideas about what is decent and in order and the Holy Spirit seems to have other ideas. The rest of 1 Corinthians 14 contains instructions on how to keep order in church services when the Holy Spirit is doing too much. I have a pretty good idea that my church experience is fairly common. I cannot think of the last time I saw the Holy Spirit doing too much in a church service. That makes me wonder if the Holy Spirit would ever be allowed do too much in most churches today. Hmmm....


I do know of a place where the Holy Spirit seems to be trying to get off the reservation. It is not a place really, but I have been receiving calls, texts messages, and emails several times a week from people who are seeing changes in their world as a result of believing and doing more than they could have even imagined not very long ago. I even get to work on a daily basis with a group of men who have what I call "a creeping awareness" the Holy Spirit is beginning to do amazing things in their lives and the lives of their families and friends. Those kinds of things do not happen when the Holy Spirit politely stays on the reservation.


Let me close with a story that I think somehow illustrates the point. It must have been about 20 years ago, a church in Santa Maria built a badly needed new church building. They had been in temporary quarters for a year during construction. We were at the first service in the new building. The worship seemed to be a little more spiritual than usual in the shiny, new building than it had been in the gymnasium. Some of us had the sense true worship was about to break-out as the people were filled with some measure of wonder at what God had done for them. Just then, the pastor stepped to the microphone and said words to the affect of, "Let's not get carried away now. We do not do that here." The pronouncement was not followed by a hush, but some people commented later it felt as though the air had been taken out of the congregation.


I believe the Holy Spirit had been grieved. The church is surviving and some say thriving these twenty years later. The valley is literally strewn with wounded people and staff members from that church--some of whom have told me personally they intend to never darken the doors of a church again. There are also at least two, newer churches made up of people who left that church over the past few years.

If you have reservations about allowing the Holy Spirit to have free reign in your life, you will never truly see the power of God at work in and around you. Yes, we are speaking personally now. God wants to change you into His image. We usually settle for being changed into the image we think (soul) or feel (soul) He wants. Those ideas usually come from someone else (parent, teacher, pastor, etc.) telling us how we should act, what we should do, how we should feel, or what we should think. (Can you say religious spirit?) Find out what God wants for you. Commune with God. Let the Holy Spirit off the reservation and get ready for a wild ride. What could be more fun than that?