Holy Spirit Rain Down

Since Sunday I have been thinking a lot about a question that Richard asked in His sermon. The question was, ‘If the Holy Spirit lives within us, does that render songs such as ‘Holy Spirit Rain Down’ un-theological or unnecessary?’ He may not have said those exact words, I can’t remember exactly – I hope I understood the question correctly.

Anyway, it was certainly food for thought. To be honest, I think this is a massive question which is probably unanswerable without delving into loads of theological debates, which I don’t want, and am in no way qualified to do. This blog is being written in order to try to iron out my own thoughts about this question, and in hope that some who understand these things better than me may be able to offer some insight. I apologise because it is very long. You may want to read it when you have half an hour spare!

The Holy Spirit as a Person
Firstly, I think it is important to recognise the personal nature of God. We call Him a He because we recognise Him as a person (though not human) whom we can relate to. The Spirit, whilst being Spirit, we also call 'He' for the same reasons. In thinking about these things, I spoke to someone to get their thoughts, and they mentioned that the Spirit is person who is either here or not here. In that sense, the Spirit is in your heart – it makes no sense to ask for more of Him, because He is simply there. I think it is worth saying though that I don’t believe God to be finite in any way. Whilst we recognise Him as a relational being, He is not confined by our understanding of what makes up a person, (a finite being). Does that therefore mean that there can be more of God? More of the spirit? Or is the Spirit of God within us in His fullness (infinite though it is) already, meaning there is no need for ‘more’ because He is completely there anyway?

The Sponge or Bucket Illustrations
Many people would use the illustration of a sponge in defining how it makes sense for us to ask for more of the Spirit. They would say that we can leak, and often need filling up again. Also, as we go about our daily Christian lives, we give away a bit of the Spirit, and therefore, we need our ‘bucket’ to be filled up again. I have to say that personally, I can’t fully agree with these. I don’t necessarily think that we leak the spirit. I think we can restrict the Spirit from working in our lives by refusing to give Him all of us, but I don’t think that means the Spirit leaves us necessarily, and certainly I don’t think it means we ‘leak the Spirit’ I don’t think that half the Spirit would be within us at a given moment! He is still there, we are just not allowing Him to be so active. I think in this case that we are right to pray that the Spirit can be fully active within us again, but whether that means asking for ‘more’ of the Spirit, or praying that the Spirit that is already within us will convict us again of our need for Him, and help us to make the necessary sacrifice, (for instance, of control of our own lives), is the question at hand. Does this mean that once we are saved, we are always saved? Ok, not going to go there! This is too big for a post that is really dedicated to another topic. However, I feel it right to say that whilst I don’t agree with ‘leakage’ I don’t think that necessarily means He wont leave if He is told to. I will leave it there, I am sure there will be many who will disagree, but maybe this could be another discussion at some time.

Living within Us
Another concept worthy of discussion is what we mean when we say the Holy Spirit lives within us, or within our hearts. When we talk about our hearts in that way, we clearly do not mean the physical heart – the organ which pumps blood around our bodies. When we say ‘from the bottom of my heart’ we are really saying from the core of who I am. From deep deep down inside me. It is almost indescribable - hence why we use the illustration of a heart. In the same way, the Spirit (a person) living within us, when we look at it from a literal perspective, makes little sense. However, we can understand this to mean that the Holy Spirit is deep inside us – taking the place of our own spirit, or our own soul, or the very core of who we are. In thinking of it in this way, we can begin to understand that the way the Holy Spirits work in our individual lives is to take over more and more of our being with Himself. (That may sound like a negative thing – but it can’t be – the Spirit is great!)

Rain or Reign?
Holy Spirit, rain down suggests ‘more’ of the spirit coming ‘down’ from above. For a start, since when was God up? Secondly, in the context of our individual lives, can we really get more of the Spirit in our lives? To be honest, I think that if we have invited Him in, He is there, and when we say we want more of God in our lives what we actually mean is, I want you to have fuller control of my life, or I want to feel you more, or I want you to be more active in my life or to have some overwhelming sense of your presence in that moment. Much of that is likely to come out of action on our part to allow God more access to those depths of our lives. In that sense, when we say Holy Spirit rain down, aren’t we really asking not for rain, but for reign? And surely part of the answer to that prayer lies within our own responsibility to ‘let go and let God’.

Feeling God More
In saying all this, I am very aware that there is a massive part being left out. This idea of wanting to ‘feel’ God more, or to have a particular experience of God for that specific moment is actually quite big and, correct me if I’m wrong, often what we are really asking for when we ask for more of God. I still personally do not think that this is about receiving more of the Spirit, rather it is a specific request for the Spirit who already lives within us to make us more aware of Him. This is also often where intercession plays a part - us asking God to make our friends or family more aware of Him or others asking the same for us. Again though – I don’t think the spirit has to ‘rain down’ for this, He is already within us after all.

More of God in the World
To be perfectly honest, when I sing this particular song, I often sing it with real conviction, but not because I want the spirit to rain down more in my life, so much as I want to see the Spirit more active in the world. As you will know from my previous entries, I am very burdened by the lack of interest in the gospel in this Country right now. There may be many reasons why this is the case, but sometimes I find myself crying out to God to do more, to be more active. It sometimes gets to the point where I question whether He really is here in the world. That is when I cry out, Holy Spirit, rain down. In response to this question on Sunday night, I said that I think there is a difference between asking God to come into our hearts, and asking God to come at a specific instance in time, for a specific purpose – as in, into the world to make a difference with some particular situation. I have since changed my view. I think that in the same way that God is already present and active in our hearts, He is also already present and active in our world. I don’t think its wrong to cry out for the Spirit to come, but I think that God’s response is, ‘I am here already’. We don’t need to ask Him to ‘rain down’. He already did. This brings up a massive issue, in terms of the need for prayer if God is already here. I don’t feel I can do justice to this right now, and I have gone on for long enough already. Suffice it to say that I do think prayer makes a difference, particularly in releasing the power, which is already here in our world ready to do something, but waiting to be invited.

Picture Language
I want to end this post by saying that most of what I have written here is a theoretical discussion of words we sing, in a song that was probably never meant to be taken so literally. We talk in picture, or metaphorical language because sometimes, theoretically accurate language leaves us cold, or doesn’t do it justice. For instance, the way we use ‘heart’ metaphorically. My mum said to me today, 'sometimes we have to constrain things to picture language because we can only access it within our own understanding'. (Good quote Mum!)Some things are way beyond comprehension, and the only way we can grasp it for ourselves is to liken it to something we do understand. Therefore, when we sing Holy Spirit rain down, I doubt that many of us would think of all of the above arguments. Rather we would sing it with gusto, really asking from our ‘hearts’ that the Spirit will do a mighty work. The terminology may not be perfect, but God knows what we mean. He knows that we are actually asking to see His power released more, or to give us an increased sense of His presence, or to give us the conviction to want to give more control of our own lives over to Him. Besides, we have a mediator who has been here, and knows what it is like to be constrained to a human viewpoint. He translates what we say into what He knows we are really crying out for. Thank God for Jesus!