The Holy Spirit isn’t always spontaneous

I'm sure many of you have been in a service in which the preacher said something like, "Well we planned to do this, but the Holy Spirit is moving and doing something different."

It makes me wonder, why wasn't the Holy Spirit moving during the planning? Why does the Holy Spirit move only in the heat of the moment?

It often wasn't like that in the Bible; in the Old and New Testaments, God would instruct His people in advance, as well as in the moment.

The Holy Spirit is with His people always. We are His temple. He's with us as much in the solitude of a prayer closet as He is in a wild gathering. Or driving in traffic. Or fixing a roof. Or sitting on a toilet.

We don't have to go anywhere to meet with God; He goes where we go.

So why do so many of us act otherwise in church?

Could it be because we equate spiritual with emotional?

In a raucous Holy Ghost service – helped along by the music – we get swept up in euphoria. We FEEL it. That must mean it's the Spirit, right?

Conversely, sitting at a desk, studying and writing ... well, that's dry and staid. It's intellectual, and the intellect quenches the Spirit!

Hogwash. Reading the Word, meditating on it, and doing it prayerfully is as powerful an experience with the Spirit as anything else. Why can't He engage the mind as much as the emotions, at any time? He moves first through His Word.

Now of course we can plan in our wisdom – just like we can act in the flesh in the middle of a service, too. Of course the Holy Spirit can change our direction, often in a sudden and unplanned way (to us). Of course He can move and speak through us on our feet (Luke 12:12).

But this idea that spiritual is synonymous with spontaneous is another unbiblical notion that turns genuine Spirit leadership into charismania. I'd sooner listen to a minister who's led by the Spirit during AND before the service than one who has to be frequently corrected on the fly.