What Are You Waiting For?

A Reflection on Pentecost and the Gifts We've Left Unopened

by Lori Wilson

I've been thinking about that upper room.

Imagine it,  the disciples huddled together behind locked doors, grief still raw, confusion still thick in the air. Jesus had risen, yes. They had seen him. And still, they were afraid. Afraid of what the authorities might do. Afraid, perhaps, of what it would mean to actually step out and be who he had called them to be.

Fear has a way of keeping us small, doesn't it?

And then, the wind. Fire. Something so completely beyond their control, beyond their planning, beyond anything they could have manufactured on their own. The Holy Spirit descended, and everything changed. Not the circumstances, nor the political climate, nor the very real dangers that waited for them in the streets below.

What changed was them.

They walked out of that upper room and spoke boldly, joyfully, in languages they hadn't known, to anyone who would listen. The fear didn't evaporate entirely, I imagine. But it no longer had the last word. They were no longer hiding from who they were created to be. They became, in the most ordinary and extraordinary sense, living examples of love.

That is the miracle of Pentecost that moves me most. Not just the wind and the fire. But the going out.

And I realize, we have been offered this same Spirit. At our Baptism, the Holy Spirit was given to us, claimed, named, and sealed. For those who are Catholic or from traditions that celebrate Confirmation, that gifting was renewed and deepened. The gifts of the Spirit:  wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, reverence, wonder and awe; these were not given as decorative items. They were given for living.

And yet, if I'm honest with myself, I have to acknowledge that some of those gifts have been sitting on the back shelf of my closet. Still wrapped. Unopened. Maybe gathering a little dust.

Not because I don't believe in them. But because opening them requires something of me. It requires that I step out of my own upper room.

What is your upper room?

Maybe it's the familiar routine that keeps you safe but slightly numbed. Maybe it's the voice in your head that says, Who are you to speak? Who are you to lead? Who are you to love that boldly? Maybe it's grief, or exhaustion, or a disappointment so deep it quietly convinced you to stop expecting much from your spiritual life.

I understand that.

But I keep returning to those disciples, ordinary, frightened, deeply human people, who somehow walked out of that locked room and set the world on fire. Not because they had it all figured out. But because they said yes to what was already living inside them.

The Spirit that hovered over the waters of creation. The Spirit that descended on Jesus at his baptism. The Spirit breathed into us. That Spirit is not a one-time gift we received in a moment now past. It is a living, moving, ever-present companion waiting, always, for us to reach for what has already been given.

What would it mean for you to open one of those gifts this week?

Not all of them. Just one.

Maybe it's the gift of wisdom, trusting what you already quietly know. Maybe it's courage, saying the thing you've been holding back, taking the step you've been circling. Maybe it's wonder and awe, pausing long enough to let beauty do its work on you again.

The Spirit is not withholding anything. The gifts are there. They have always been there.

What are you waiting for?

For Your Reflection:

• What does your "upper room" look like right now, the place where fear or habit keeps you locked in?

• If you think about the gifts of the Spirit, which one feels most alive in you? Which one feels most unopened?

• When have you experienced the Holy Spirit moving in your life, not necessarily dramatically, but unmistakably?

• What is one small act of courage, love, or wisdom you could offer this week as a way of saying yes to the Spirit already within you?

A Prayer

Come, Holy Spirit. Not as a distant memory of something that happened long ago, but as the living breath you have always been, moving in me, through me, around me.

Help me find the courage to open what you have already given. To step out of whatever locked room I have been keeping myself in. To live more fully and freely, the life I was made for.

You have not held back. Help me stop holding back, too.

Amen.