Beach balls...

I had a vision this morning of a beach ball. Now we live in upstate New York and there is snow on the ground, so I haven’t seen a beach ball in some time. But in my quite thoughts this morning, there was that image.

A beach ball is filled with air, and we can’t see the air, but we can see the effects of it being filled with air – it gets bigger! As believers, we get, in a sense, filled with air, too! It’s the Holy Spirit, and you can’t see the Holy Spirit in us any more than we can see the air in a beach ball. We do get bigger, but it’s called Spiritual Growth. We learn to trust in God more. (We can get bigger by going to potluck suppers, too! – but that’s not the same)

Just like watching the beach ball get bigger, you can see the effects of the Holy Spirit in us. The Apostle Paul called them the fruits of the Spirit – when we see people who are filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness, we see people who are filled with the Holy Spirit. When we grow spiritually, we are filled with these fruits, too.

Sometimes we see people who claim to be believers, but we don’t see these fruits of the Holy Spirit. Maybe these people are just filled with air…

One more thing about the beach ball image. Have you ever been to a beach and watched a beach ball blow away? They can really move! It only takes a little wind, and the ball can blow away very quickly. In Greek, the word for wind is the same word that is used for spirit.

And I think a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit is guided by the Spirit very much like the beach ball is driven by the wind. We can’t see the wind blowing that beach ball any more than we can see the Spirit guiding the believer. But we can see the effects of the wind on other things, just like we can see the effects of the Spirit in a faithful person.