Waiting on the Holy Spirit: Dependence on Him

(By Howard Culbertson)
"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." -- Psalm 27:14
Sometimes we highly-motivated types want to rush out to serve the Lord using not much more than our own thoughts, ambitions, actions and desires. We need to reflect a bit on the stern warning given in Isaiah 30 to those who develop plans without bothering to ask if they fit the mind and will of God.
The discipline of waiting on the Holy Spirit is a powerful reminder to me that I'm not to be the one ultimately in charge. I need to be reminded of that often. When we truly learn to wait on God, we discover how great He is, how immense His love is toward us, how powerful He is and how involved He wants to be in our lives.
Years ago Andrew Murray wrote a devotional book called Waiting on God. In these 31 devotionals Murray pours out his message that an adequate knowledge and understanding of the ways of God only comes to those who know how to patiently wait. So, in some ways, our willingness to wait on the Holy Spirit can be a measure of whether we have recognized the real source of power and cleansing and strength.
In one of his books, Henri Nouwen recounts a spiritual insight that came to him through a friendship he had struck up with the Flying Rodleighs, famous German trapeze artistes. Nouwen spent a week in Germany with this group of South Africans and Americans. One day the trapeze group leader told Nouwen: "As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump. . . The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. . . The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. . . .A flyer must fly and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him."
What a great picture of what God asks us to do. We are the flyer and He is the catcher. We are as dependent on Him as the trapeze flyer is upon his catcher. People may see us and think how great we are but the real star of this is our Lord, not us. On this day, as you swing through the air seemingly far, far above safety, you must trust in the the Lord to be your catcher. Wait for Him; He will be there for you...