The Not-So-Secret, Secret

Moving back to the rural Midwest, after living on the west coast for a couple of decades, I have found that my taste buds are out of place here. In southern Minnesota the food du jour is meat and potatoes. Every. Single. Day. If not meat and potatoes, then fried chicken and French fries. Oh wait, that is still meat and potatoes.  I kid you not, the local diner advertises “meat” on its sidewalk sandwich board sign. What kind of meat you ask? I’m not sure and I don’t intend to find out.

I adore Thai food, but I’m really not that great at cooking Asian cuisine. Unfortunately where I live, there are no Thai restaurants for 120 miles. Cooking it myself is my only option. If you are a connoisseur (how do you even spell that word?!), perhaps you have tried Tom Kha Gai soup. It’s a soup flavored with coconut milk, cilantro, galangal root and red curry paste. People around here do not like curry. What’s up with that? I know that the word galangal root might ruin it for you if the word paste doesn’t. But believe me, Tom Kha over rice is heavenly!!! Seriously, go try it. You can thank me later. 

Don’t even get me started on salad rolls dipped in delicious peanut sauce. Glory, hallelujah! The common denominator here is the importance of the sauce. If you get the sauce wrong, everything is wrong. 

I’ve been reading the book Jesus, Continued…: Why the Spirit Inside You is Better Than Jesus Beside You by J. D. Greear. Jesus says in John 16 that it is better for Him to go away so that He can send the Holy Spirit. Various translations say that it is best for us, that it is to our benefit, it is to our advantage that He send the Holy Spirit. Why? Because then we have the Holy Spirit inside us. The Holy Spirit is THAT important. That’s what Jesus wants for us.

The Holy Spirit is the secret sauce. Only, He’s the not-so-secret, secret. It’s just that we’ve made Him secret. It’s like we view Him as the unknowable member of the trinity. He’s knowable. 

The Spirit and the bride say come (Rev. 22:17). They are beckoning us to explore the kingdom of God hand in hand. The kingdom is here and it is now. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). Be curious. Don’t be afraid. Learn to walk in the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit. Explore. Let the Teacher teach you. It’s ok if you are at the starting line. That’s where we all begin. It’s a level playing field because there is no end to the journey. We never stop learning.

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives…Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirits leading in every part of our lives (Gal. 5:16, 25).

When you taste the not-so-secret, secret sauce of the Spirit, you find He is good and like a good Tom Kha soup, you just want more. If you’ll excuse me, I have some soup to make.

– Vonda Sellers