The Holy Spirit

We sang a hymn from our hymn book in church on Sunday that I was not familiar with, so I check to see how old it was. I was surprised to see that it was a recent hymn, written by Wei-fan Wang, a Chinese I believe, in 1982. The title of the hymn is, “Holy Spirit Is like the Wind.” It is a long hymn of five stanzas and fully covers two pages in the hymn book. If it had ten stanzas we would have sung all of them. I have been singing hymns here for five years here in China and we have not skipped a stanza yet.

I love hymns because most are rich in content and focus more on God than does our modern music which has more of a focus on us. I especially love singing hymns in China because we have only a piano with about 600 worshippers singing their hearts out. For me this is worship. In America it becomes entertainment if you can even find a church that sings hymns and with only a piano. Before each service we spend 20 to 30 minutes practicing the hymns we will sing. Try to get an American congregation to come early to do that.

This hymn caught my attention because of its content. Each stanza described what the Holy Spirit was like. He was described like the wind, a spring, the oil, a sword, and the fire. Each stanza then explained how the likeness was a benefit to our life. For example: “Holy Spirit is like the fire, Purifying the dregs of life; Like the bright light that shines our way, Clearing our sight from doubt and fear. Purge me Lord, oh, purge me clean; Guide me thro’ pathway of your love. May I become Your golden tool, A bide in Your light and flame of love.” To “bide in” suggest that we remain in his light and flame of love from which we serve as his golden tool.