Echoes of the Spirit (Wildfire Version)

I grew up in charismatic church circles, and I'll never forget a kids camp where everyone around me was praying loud, hands raised, speaking in tongues, clearly caught up in the moment. I was the shy, introverted kid—and I felt completely out of place. It came to a head when a group of well-meaning adults gathered around me, laid their hands on my head, and pressed me to pray louder, as if God couldn't hear me the way I was. I walked away with a deep, sinking shame. I wasn't enough for God. Everyone else could feel His presence, and I was the odd one out who just couldn't get it right.

That moment stuck with me, and for a long time it hardened into an identity: God speaks to everyone else like that, but somehow He forgot me on the sidelines.

It took years to see that none of it was true. What I had witnessed was a poor representation of God—sincere people, but hyped into an emotional frenzy more of their own making than of the Spirit of the living God.

Here's what I came to know: God's Spirit does work in clear, unmistakable ways in my life. It just doesn't always look loud. Not hearing Him audibly, never having some ecstatic experience—that doesn't mean the Spirit isn't moving in the deep places. For me it's almost always the still small voice, that inner knowing of what I should or shouldn't do. Like Elijah, who didn't find God in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in a gentle whisper.

Over decades now, His Spirit has echoed and reverberated through my life, and it's still at work today. So my hope for anyone listening is simple: if you've been handed a poor picture of God, don't let it cloud out the truth that He is present, active, and moving. Yes, there are moments of grandiose power in Scripture—but more often He shows up the way He did for Elijah, in the quiet.

So pay attention. Keep your ears open to what His Spirit is speaking. Keep your eyes awake to the way He still moves. And let those moments echo through your life until they become a resounding crescendo—proof of His Spirit, dwelling in you.