By Bill Stark, HT.com blogger, president of InnerComm, and director of Cloud Walk
There is certainly a distinct spirit to Ole Miss….we know it instinctively when we see it, hear it or experience it. We get really close to it when we’re packed in the Grove before a big game, when the Rebels score a touchdown or win a game in extra innings.
Likely, we all have different ideas as to what the Ole Miss spirit is. Perhaps it has to do with a shared experience of a special and tranquil place or perhaps it’s a shared ideal….southern hospitality, camaraderie or the simple enjoyment of each other’s company. Just as the Ole Miss spirit so gently pervades our hearts, so to there is a special Spirit of God that desires to do the same….and more.
There’s a prayer that Mother Teresa prayed that included a most beautiful line…“(God) penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may be only a radiance of Yours.”
In our culture, conversation about being possessed is usually connected to gruesome movies about demons, witches or vampires. However, there is a kind of possession that we, as followers of Christ, should desire…inviting God’s Holy Spirit to fully “invade” and possess our thoughts and hearts each day.
One of the humblest prayers I have ever prayed is that I’d be moldable…that I’d surrender my life…allow Him to possess me fully…and that I would become more and more like Christ in my actions, deeds and thoughts…that the life of God’s Holy Spirit would be lived through me, that I’d bring Him glory and draw others to Him.
The old hymn classic Spirit of the Living God, says “Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me,
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.”
Being possessed by God’s Holy Spirit is a given for believers in Christ. Yet, throughout the sanctification process, we must seek continued change of our hearts, asking for more of Him and less of us and seek to be renewed daily. John 3:30 reminds of of this idea – “He must become greater; I must become less.”
I pray now that each of us can have as our highest desire to honor God by allowing Him to fully live His life through us. Mold all of us, shape all of us until people are reminded only of Jesus when they are around us.
Just as we desire to experience the joy and excitement of the Ole Miss spirit, even more, let us join together in seeking God’s living Spirit to permeate our whole being….every moment of every day. That, my friend, will bring an abundant joy and life like no earthly creation can ever achieve.
The poem below was written with this changed life in mind.
[quote]ENTER IN AGAIN THIS DAY
Enter in anew this day
Be whole throughout my soul I pray
End to end come now invade;
All my plans may you pervade.
Grab my heart and shake it loose
remove all lumps and cancer too;
turn Me to thy glorious face
till my pride then turns to grace.
Change the way I walk this path;
Let me see thy glorious way
May lower things beneath me fall
and You stand firm above them all.
Turn me, mold me, make me thine
That I may be no longer mine;
That only you come forth right now
And be my light, my light divine.
– WGS
April 2014[/quote]
Bill Stark is a Greenville, Mississippi native who graduated from Ole Miss in 1983 with a BA degree in Journalism. Bill married his college sweetheart, Starwyn Strickland, of Brazil, Mississippi, and they have three children, including twins Mary Catherine and Ellen and son Will. He currently resides in Alpharetta, Georgia. Email Bill Stark at bill.stark@cloudwalk.org
Enter in Again This Day
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