Our Comforter

      By Fern Horst

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." (John 14:16-18)

It is easy as we go about our busy lives to forget that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is always with us. We know the importance of Bible reading and study, but what happens when responsibilities and busyness prevent us from spending as much time in the Word as we'd like?

During one such time in my life I heard a radio speaker encourage busy mothers to snatch short little times of communion with the Lord here and there as they could, rather than feeling guilty for not having long chunks of time for Bible study and undistracted prayer.

I realized that as a single woman with a busy life I could do the same. I could either let my relationship with the Lord slip while bemoaning my lack of time, or I could take golden moments here and there to talk with Him, or to grab my Bible and read a few verses to think about throughout the day.

That was almost 20 years ago. Since then I've had similar extremely busy times in my life when I've utilized that same strategy again. Thankfully, I've also had those stretches of time when I could spend more time in specific Bible reading, study, and prayer times.

The important thing is that we recognize what opportunities we have at the time, no matter what our situation is. Because the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) is always with us, we always have Him to talk to - when we're waiting in line at the store, when we're driving down the road, when we're waiting for our computers to boot up, when we're shoveling the snow off our sidewalks.

I'm not always aware as much as I should be of the Holy Spirit's presence with me, all the time. I sometimes allow myself to feel lonely, bored, distressed, fearful, angry - when I have the Comforter with me to talk to, to listen to, to comfort and encourage me.

Join me this week in intentionally being more aware of His presence with us. I know from past experience that such awareness is rich with rewards. Many frustrations and negative feelings diminish when, instead of dwelling on the negative, we take that time to talk with the Comforter instead.

© 2008 Fern Horst

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