4 Signs of the Holy Spirit's Presence

Last week, I wrote a little bit about reclaiming the ancient prayer “Come, Holy Spirit” in our personal prayer lives.

One of my primary convictions about building a prayer life is that cultivating a relationship with God is about cultivating a real relationship with a real Person, and that implies a give and take, a talking and responding.

So, this begs the question — how do we know when the Holy Spirit has come? How do we know that He has responded to our request for Him to come in an increased way? Is it merely an increase in our mental awareness, or is there more?

If we’re talking about inviting the God of the universe, the Holy and Righteous one to come to our time of prayer, our church service, or prayer meeting, we had better get it right when He comes to dwell among us — the reality that Ephesians 2:22 points to. Otherwise, we risk being one-sided in our relationship — asking Him to come but never acknowledging (and therefore giving Him right worship) when He does!

I think there are at least four primary evidences that the Holy Spirit hears our prayer and comes to walk among us:

1. Hunger

If you’ve been tracking along with my emails, you know that I use the words hunger, desire, and longing interchangeably to describe our inner ache for God. For me, a huge evidence of the presence of God is this: is there a longing, hunger, desire, or ache in my heart for Him? Or is there even a desire to desire Him, a want to want Him?

Another word I use to describe this is a “reach” because that’s what it often feels like for me — a hand in my heart reaching upward for a sense of connection with God. A prayer life begins when we can bless this desire, this ache, this reach as a gift from God, and begin to direct our longing and desire Godwards (2 Thess 3:5). What does hunger feel like for you?

The most precious thing I have is the internal “reach” in my heart for God. The moment I stop longing for Him, or when I try to satisfy that inner ache with achievements, accolades, or anesthetic devices (like the dopamine hits from social media), is the minute I violate the gift that God gave me to find Him in prayer.

So, the first major evidence of God’s presence is an awareness of the reach, and perhaps one of the most important disciplines in a life of prayer is learning how to maintain this tenderness of heart through the ups and downs of life.

2. Oil

Have you ever tried to cook something without oil before? You can use broth, vinegar, or water, but once it evaporates, that food really sticks to the pan. I’ve tried different time periods of oil-free cooking, and every time cooking is just more difficult. Oil just makes it easy to cook (and more tasty to eat).

The symbol of oil in the Scriptures actually has a diverse library of metaphor and meaning, but often it can refer to a sense of “anointing” from God. When I say “oil,” I am referring metaphorically in this sense to times when God makes it easy to love Him. When He anoints our hearts with a grace to love.

Consider what Paul presents as evidence that one is filled with the Spirit in Ephesians 5:

When one is filled with the Spirit, Pauls says that the evidence, or the overflow, is singing and gratitude! On one hand, both singing and gratitude are helpful spiritual disciplines to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence in and among us.

On the other hand, there have been countless moments in my life where I have felt dry, disconnected, inflated, or deflated, and a song is played or a Scripture is read or a prayer is prayed, and God is on it in such a way that it just cuts through whatever funk I happen to be in at the moment and I just find it easy to worship. Singing and gratitude become an instantaneous overflow rather than a muscled-up discipline.

Jesus says of the Holy Spirit in John 16:14 that “He will glorify me,” and I believe that one of the primary pieces of evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit is a supernatural ability to love Jesus more, with real affection, through singing and gratitude, regardless of our physical, mental, or emotional state. Have you ever experienced this?

3. Tears

Many saints in the Christian tradition have referred to something called the “gift of tears” as evidence of God’s presence.

Consider what one Catholic priest has to say about the history of tears as evidence of God’s presence:

When was the last time you cried real tears of repentance or real tears of desire and longing? Have you experienced one more than the other?

4. a Burning Heart

For the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the evidence of Jesus’s presence with them was their hearts burning within them.

When I first started meeting with a spiritual director 2.5 years ago, he asked me a question that has shaped my pursuit of God ever since then.

“Where do you feel God’s presence?”

I began to give him some intellectual reflection (as usual), completely disconnected from my body and heart, and, (as usual) he challenged me to look within my own heart and body to name my actual experience with God, rather than one I read about in some theological or pastoral book.

I think this is similar to what the disciples on the road to Emmaus did — they were able to name in their own experience that their burning heart was what pointed them to Jesus’s presence in their midst.

So, I’ll leave you with this: Where do you feel God’s presence? How do you know that your heart is burning within you, not just as an idea but as a reality?

Today, maybe take some deep breaths, and without pressure or expectation simply pray “Come, Holy Spirit,” and wait. See what God does!