Can you imagine a world without walls? It’s kinda hard for me too. There are some famous ones (The Great Wall of China), and some infamous ones (The Iron Curtain). Usually they just give a structure its form, yet in some places they are canvas of art.

In the scriptures there are a few stories about walls. How Joshua took down the wall of Jericho — WALLZILLA. How the hand of God wrote “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN” on the wall of King Belshazzer’s palace. Also worth mentioning is God saying about his future kingdom,

“For I,” says (The LORD), “will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory in the midst of her.”

Zechariah 2:5, WEB

But walls also exist in other places. Our hearts. I am a master at putting them up inside: I hate to admit. And when I am down… there is this pesky guy that always knows how to poke at the weak spots. Jesus. I perceive him that way sometimes. I’m glad he can take my bad moods, and still pierce through them.

His presence always reminds me that it is foolish to do something like that. If he wanted to put up a wall towards us… he could do so without any trouble. Yet, he is something that is tricky for the lot of us. He is always accessible. His heart is an open ocean. We can go to him with all of our pain, sadness, and fear — for all he has for us is the salty tears of his affection ready to be given.

Whatever walls I have made, he tears them down. Whatever measures I take to try to feel less — he almost drags me into a place of compassion. And eventually I soften. I can’t resist it. At the end of the day I wouldn’t want to for long.

We make ourselves prisoners to our misery when we try to make a way to be cold. Many try to numb the pain of want with all the vices known to people. I just get incredibly clinical. That’s not the bad part. It is when I get cynical. Where the ember of grace becomes a spark, if even.

It’s an old way of dealing with things I have seen, and it is better than it has been. I’m not like I used to be with it, but nevertheless… it’s a familiar Jujitsu.

What I find amazing is even when I go to the far reaches of my inner north pole, the gentle wisdom of the Spirit is still THERE.

Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! If I take the winds of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me. The light around me will be night,” even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.

Psalms 139:7-12, WEB

As that awareness of God exists in time and space, I also find that it exists in my heart. No matter where I go in there, in the shadow or the light — I can’t run from he who is the presence of the deep things. Nor can I run from the Father, and all of his promises, no matter how improbable they seem to me in the moment, for his son is every “yes and amen” in him.

And at the deepest levels of darkness, there is one voice that comes in like a breeze. And that breeze has gale force strength with it. It is her voice. The voice of the Holy Spirit.

I know it is touchy for some people for some people to think of the Holy Spirit as “She”. That’s fine. It can go either way when you check out the grammar and gender of the ancient texts.

BUT… you will find in the Hebrew Texts that the writers leave the word “Ruach” in the feminine more often than not. With this word, you can ascribe a gender by changing the prefix or suffix of the word that comes before it if I am not mistaken. There are instances where it is explicit that it is referring to the Father when it says the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. But normally that is not the case.

Little disclaimer, I am not making a case for the gender of God. The best way I can think of to describe what I am touching on is the Holy Spirit comes across as the “feminine aspect” of God’s nature. Should it be that one day she manifests with the form of a lady, so be it. Should it be that the Holy Spirit manifests one day with the form of a man (as have angels in scripture), so be it. I’m putting the tone of her dynamics into words. It’s not about God’s gender (should the Godhead possess such a thing); rather, it is about the tone of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Dove of God.

That being said I have long wondered why when I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit I was often confused with some things. I could never integrate the emotions that came from her, into my own, thinking of them with a masculine energy. They are soft, yet strong. Firm, yet flexible. I dare say that if one is to really partake in the meditations of God in their own spirit, they would be wise to not define what they are in nature and form too early. Basically choking a creation being birthed mid-process. No bueno.

I used to do this very often, as I severely screened the unctions of God long before I understood them decently. It came, in part, from my upbringing in churches that had a inflexible rigor in their doctrine. If something didn’t fit with the model (even if it was an inspired word from God to encourage someone), it was tossed out.

Mind you, very few openly and descriptively do this in church (at least in private conversation), but it is done. The terror to me is how this affects how scripture is understood.

” ‘The scriptures are the inerrant word of God’ It is plain to see. What we need to know is in black and white. So there is no confusion.”

Sure… it’s in black and white. It’s just text on a page at that point.

The only thing that is black and white about reading the scriptures that way (being far too literal) is finding scriptures that contradict each other. Where grace is found in one… wrath suffocates the grace in another, and so doing, crimping the throat of she who speaks life into the heart — The Holy Spirit.

If you think about it all words are dead. We put our souls and understanding into them in order for them to come to life for us. It doesn’t matter if is a novel, or a math proof. Words have meaning because we give them meaning.

In anything relating to scripture, or life for that matter: the living one must bring life and understanding into the words in order for them to live. If God lives for us always, and always at the ready: to aid, to heal, to restore, and to redeem a fallen world in totality — then God must always start in the heart of ONE. God cannot use dead words to do these miracles, for he is LIFE itself.

We can give meaning to the scriptures ourselves, but (at least for me) it almost always ends up twisted and dark in the final result without the Spirit of the Lord.

Being far too literal is a death sentence towards her creativity in us. And towards God’s mission to knock down unholy walls in the heart.

Being too stringent with what is right and wrong, merely in regards to considering the thing in question: is death to the meaning and growth that comes from walking with the Spirit within. The Godhead isn’t a taskmaster. God is not a judge enthroned on high with an infinite list of what is right and wrong to believe in. He is far too creative to be bored with the infinitely many permutations of logic that it takes to apply a binary description to what exists, as to it being right or wrong.

If one only reads the Holy Book with a cast-iron mindset as to what it must mean (holding preconceptions of its meaning already), then that one risks following an understanding written by the Snake, rather than the Spirit.

“Literal-ism” is death to the meaning and life found in God, at least in the heart of a person. I won’t mince words here. The WORD of God (Christ), reads the holy word INTO one’s heart. God traduces the power of written scripture into the soul. He is its POWER. Period.

If all he has available in you is words that mean one thing, and one thing alone. You bind the voice of the Author and the Finisher of the faith. His own voice is the tool that does his bidding. AND…

So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11, AKJV

All of Christ’s wisdom is found in the Spirit of God. All of his Power is found in the Spirit of God. All of his nature that is shared with the Father, is also found one and the same in the Spirit.

You get the picture.

I feel that only when the ones who proclaim faith in Christ accept this dynamic of God shall they become planet-shakers again.

The Spirit of God is always ready to breath life anew into someone. Even if that someone has had a long standing relationship with the Lord. Even if someone sprinkled holy water over your head as a infant, there is still so much more to know and find in the depth’s of the Spirit’s Heart.

As it is for the Father and the Son, the Spirit’s wisdom knows no end. She was there when the foundations of the earth were laid out. She was there when the first word was spoken, and she was THERE at the Cross, in the Savior of all men. Beating in his weakening pulse, given as a ransom for all.

I’ll trust the Wisdom of God long before I’ll trust the wisdom of men when it comes to understanding the scriptures, the world, and this life in all of its little twists and turns. Even if in trusting it I have to fight against seas of doubt, fear, and the unsettling feeling that it makes one not “fit in”. I’ll willingly deal with tearing down the very walls I put up against God, through him. Hurts like hell sometimes, but it is better to deal with the sting of his curative scalpel of wisdom, than to deal with the poison filled needle of my own limited senses.

It doesn’t matter if that wisdom is to be applied towards the Holy Word, the words of others, and even our own. It started with Wisdom. May it go on forever by the Wisdom, the Father, and the Son.

Anyone who is born has always had a place in the Heart of the Father. His Heart is the home and abode to every soul he has created. Most haven’t realized it yet.

Anyone who has existed has a place in the eyes of Jesus Christ. Known to him from afar and near, we are welcomed into his presence.

And the Breath of Life herself beats in the cells of every living thing. Ready to impart her Wisdom, her consolations, and the depths of her understanding. Ready to embrace us as her own sons and daughters.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I (Christ) would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

Matthew 23:37, WEB

If that doesn’t speak of the heart of God, I don’t know what else would.

I pray that wisdom finds its way to you, for God gives without restraint or prejudice. Any sincere and honest inquiry of his ways he will meet with gratitude. And to they who partake of them, more reward is to be found. When we listen to Wisdom, and to the WORD of God.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him.

James 1:5, WEB

Thank you for your time and for reading.

Blessings.