Approach 2: Use a Biblical Metaphor
This post is part of a series on approaches to developing your awareness of the Holy Spirit.
Summary
Use a passage from the Christian Bible that describes the Holy Spirit’s activity inside of us, and visualize his activity taking place inside of you. Imagine it is happening, even as you think about it.
Details
This approach has done so much for me; my hands tremble as I write. This is the approach that inspired this blog, and ties for first as my favourite [1].
Choose a metaphor
Here are some great options:
- Just the Holy Spirit – Simply imagining the Holy Spirit filling you, however you picture the Holy Spirit, is likely to enough to keep you engaged for a while. Imagine Holy Spirit as filling you completely. Imagine His/Her water filling you from the tip of your toes to the top of your head. Explaination: In the Christian Bible, 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “…do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” This is, in itself, a mind-blow.
- Living water in you: Imagine Jesus gives you a drink, and water flows into you. Then it flows out of you to other people, filling them up too. Explanation: Jesus said that if we were thirsty, we could come to Him and drink, and living water would flow out of us. [John, who wrote this about Jesus, made it clear that Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit (John 7:37-39).]
- Water your belly: Visualize water shooting out from your belly or even from a womb-shaped space inside of you. Imagine this force spreading to the rest of your body, and then to other people. Explanation: When Jesus said living water would flow from us in John 7, he used a word that is sometimes translated as “belly”, but more frequently translated by the more literal Lexham English Bible translators as “womb“. You might not have a physical womb, so maybe you’ll never birth a child, but Jesus is just saying that we have within us a “birthing” centre that he wants to energize.
- Wind or breath flowing into you. Focus on God’s breath, blowing through each part of your body starting with your toes and gradually working upward. Explanation: When Luke describes Holy Spirit coming in Acts 2:1, he uses a word that is usually translated “violent wind”, but could just as well be translated “violent breath”. When Jesus was saying good-bye to his disciples, he breathed on them and said, “Recieve the Holy Spirit” (Jn20:22). When God created humans, He breathed into person-shaped clay. This breath turned the first person from being dead into being alive (Ge2:7).
- Power flowing through you. Imagine a power like electricity gradually filling you, body part by body part, animating you. Explanation: In Acts 1:8, Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit as power. Many believers experience Spirit as a kind of electricity. Similarly, you might think about Spirit as a fire that can touch something without destroying it (Ac2:3; Ex:3:2).
Body part by body part – Imagine the Holy Spirit filling each part of your body, one at a time, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.
Pay attention to the pictures that come – Imagining the Holy Spirit filling each part of you is actually a bit of an interesting task. If you’re like me, you’ll find that some parts of your body are easy to visualize being filled, while others are practically impossible. With still others, my mind’s eye shows me the Holy Spirit swirling around the body part for quite some time before He seems to be welcomed in. Sometimes I feel a rush of energy when the Holy Spirit makes it to one body part. Explanation: It seems like the Holy Spirit wants to use our body parts to symbolize spiritual matters. I usually assume that what I see going on in my mind is about my thinking, my heart is about my motivations (the bible actually doesn’t use heart to talk about emotions), my hands is about what I do, and my feet is about connecting with others (Eph 6:15). So if it’s difficult to visualize the Holy Spirit filling my mind, I assume he’s saying that he wants to take over how I think, but I’m not letting him.
Advantages, Disadvantages, and Modifications
Advantages
- This is a great way to invite the Holy Spirit to take you over!
Disadvantages
- Unlike stories, metaphors are fairly instant. If you just go to your secret place, an visualize a metaophor, you won’t be spending much time meditating on the Holy Spirit.
Modifications
- My life changed when I committed to visualizing a metaphor (any metaphor) for ten minutes a day for 45 days.
- Combine metaphors and images. For some reason, what comes to me is fire coming from my womb. I guess that’s a combining of John 7:37-39 with Acts 2:3 and other verses that refer to Holy Spirit as fire.
[1] The other tie for first as my favourite is Approach 4: Observing the Pictures.