I have often wondered how on earth I can hear God speaking to me. Often I am told to listen to the Holy Spirit. My ears would prick up but hear nothing, my eyes enlarged is disbelieving amusement. As I grew spiritually wiser, I realised that we listen to God through our hearts and not our ears. As I grew older, my eyes would open wide again, but in awe and wonder in seeing God in the happenings of my personal life. 

The happenings in life are often pretty random. Mostly they also seem isolated and unrelated. Generally they are minor affairs, occasionally they are a major event in our personal life. On a piece of drawing paper, they appear like random dots. But when we trace these dots together, a path comes into view. This path cuts across the eventful picture of the jubilation and tribulation of our personal life. 

It is a spiritual path through our earthly life leading us back to our Creator. Little events become milestones on a spiritual journey. One milestone lead to the next, one door closing lead to another opening, one event in life leads to another. This path lengthens as we grow older, more events would have occurred but these events no longer seem isolated. Linked together, they make picture perfect sense. 

Joining these dots and linking these milestones is the work of the Holy Spirit. The events in our life is the language the Holy Spirit use to speak to us. It is God’s medium of communication. He speaks and we hear him in the happenings of our life. 

Today is Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descended onto the apostles and they emerged courageously from the Upper Room and began speaking in foreign languages. The diverse audience were amazed and astonished. Each person bewildered to hear a native language they personally understood.

This is the language of events. For each of us, this language is unique. Only ‘I’ alone can understand what God is saying to ‘me’ in the events of ‘my’ life.  But people around us are important. People lend a ‘voice’ to these events by their actions and experiences. Some people have a louder and wiser voice simply because they are ‘older’ and had passed through these events before.

Every event in life is unique but some can be hauntingly similar as though someone else’s experience is speaking directly to us. Our ears prick up as their story resonates with our senses and the sound of God’s calling echo in our hearts. For both the listener and the testifier, the receiver and the giver, there is awe and there is wonder at the remarkable ‘coincidence’ that has left us bewildered. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, the language of God’s love. 

This language is beautifully expressed; its finesse expressed through the seemingly minor, random events we least suspect would have a great impact in our later years. We must be aware to these probabilities because they will eventually prove to be milestones on our journey. 

The Holy Spirit is a wonderful experience. The personal events of our life in all its minor details is a beautiful and flowery language. When we begin to speak this language and share our personal experiences of God, we become the voice of God calling to the other. At the same time we experience the music of healing written with the notes of Love for all our past experiences that had not been so wonderful. 

These would remain dots, if not for the Holy Spirit. Joined,  they preach through the language of events about the marvels of God.

 Pentecost Sunday