In the summer of 1987, when I was about to enter my Junior year of college, I met two people who had a significant impact on my spiritual life. One was Mary, mother of two pre-school children, a member of my hometown Lutheran church. The other was a middle-aged man named Jim. Mary had a prayer gathering for women that met occasionally in her home; I had seen it advertised in the bulletin. Within maybe 48 hours of my first conversation with Jim, he was in a crisis state which both landed him him jail and brought about, in his words, his trying to come back to the Lord. Going from my quiet, solitary life as a fast food employee to being caught up in the whirlwind of this stranger's "reversion" shook me pretty hard, and I felt an urgent need to pray, both on my own and with other people. So I cold-called Mary, asked her about her prayer group, and she invited me over and befriended me.
At this point in my life, I was serious about reading Scripture, serious about evangelizing, serious about writing music through which I poured out my heart to God. I had graduated from a Lutheran high school and was in a Lutheran college and considered myself a committed Christian, although I felt somewhat restless. I was very, very good at knowing the Lutheran catechism answers, and I asked adult-level questions of my church. The intellectual quest invigorated me and took the edge of not being satisfied with the answers I was given.
But then Jim started challenging me about the person of the Holy Spirit. Over the phone, he walked me through a study of the book of Acts, pointing out how things changed when the Holy Spirit showed up on the scene.
I knew about people who believed that, and I knew that my church had an official position that actual manifestations of the Holy Spirit where "things happened" no longer happened. As a high school student at a youth rally I had even witnessed pastors telling jokes to the whole assembly that made fun of people who said they were speaking in tongues and who raised their hands in the air.
But then one day, Mary also asked me if I believed that God still filled people with the Holy Spirit as in the book of Acts. "Maybe He does," I responded. It was actually a radical openness that flew in the face of my Lutheran identity.
I studied those passages of Scripture again and again that summer. Mary even prayed with me that I would be filled with the Holy Spirit. I didn't notice anything happen.
By the time my fall semester started and I was back at school, I was doctrinally convinced that there was no reason to believe God didn't pour out His Holy Spirit on people today, like in the Bible. I had changed my mind.
But changing my doctrinal position did nothing for me, personally. I was like a person who got an A in her nutrition class, but was suffering from an eating disorder. This came to a head when another mutual friend of Jim's, Mary's and mine, who had also been studying about the Holy Spirit with us, actually asked the Lord to fill her with the Holy Spirit, and she experienced a transformative encounter with the love of God. She was changed.
I remember hanging up the phone on my dorm floor after hearing this news. I was depressed for two days. So, God loved her so much that something real actually happened for her. The lies that had suffocated me for my whole life blew up again. I'm not loved. I'll never be loved. God does things for other people, not for me. It's hopeless. I'm hopeless. Forget it. I'll just stay here, alone, like always.
I tried to pray, but this sadness (and all these lies) kept pulling me down. But I had this nagging thought that we always talked about "receiving" the Holy Spirit. There was something I actually had to do. I never actually had gone to God to ask or receive. Literally, I had NEVER thought to ask God for any spiritual good, believing that he would give it. I doctrinally believed God gave things to people; I just didn't at all believe He'd do it for me.
After the two depressed days were done, I decided I was going to pursue asking God. But I couldn't just ask. I had to go buy a book, and read it first. I spent all night reviewing all the theology again. Then finally I prayed the prayer that was in the book, thanking Jesus for saving me, asking Him to be the Lord of the my life and to fill me with the Holy Spirit.
It was like a lightning bolt struck me. I was washed over with the most profound sense of love and cleansing and acceptance. My hopelessness was replaced with ecstatic joy. The next day I went down to breakfast in my best dress, and a professor, seeing my smile, said, "My, you look.... radiant ... this morning!"
It wasn't an instant fix of everything in my life, but it was the equivalent of going from standing in line for a rollar coaster, and riding it.
And it all boiled down to asking.
