Unleashed Book Club: Chapter 2

Welcome to the Unleashed Book Club! We're reading Unleashed, by Sonja Corbitt.

I loved this whole chapter, I read it once and then had to go through and re-read my notes just to soak as much of it up as I could. It's full of many precious pearls for the soul.

Pointing to the woman in scripture with the hemorrhage, from Mark's gospel, who reached out and touched Jesus and was then cured, Sonja invites us to reach out and touch the Holy Spirit so he can unleash his powerful and healing love on us. Like a true gentleman, as Sonja says,

The Holy Spirit never forces, only invites.

Sometimes we wonder - is He ever going to hear me or answer me? Sonja assures us - He does and he will.

When I am completely at a loss as to how I should proceed in a circumstance or have not the resources to move forward, I can always count on the Holy Spirit, the Way Maker, to do something. Predictably unpredictable, we never know the details of when to expect him, just that we should expect him, because he will arrive.

What stuck out to me the most in this chapter was Sonja's points about letting the Holy Spirit work within us at his own pace! Relating the Holy Spirit's timing to that of nature she poses this question -

How often do I mistake ambition for inspiration and seek to make energy a substitute for a clearly defined intention?

Yikes. Guilty for sure [said while sheepishly raising my hand in the back row].

Too often, I get caught up in all the things I could do - all of them good. I'll get all excited about all the wonderful ways in which I could serve God and bring Christ to others and then I start hopping from one idea to the next until - without fail - I crash into a dozen brick walls and fall of my high horse of righteousness in the name of God.

When this happens, I usually find myself weeping on the kitchen floor, wallowing in self-misery and cracker crumbs while my kids run around me screaming and crying for something or another.

It's only in prayer later, and by reading Sonja's words, that I realize how I got there: I tried rushing God; setting my own time limits and starting projects - all in His name of course - on my own initiative but without consulting him first. I just assumed since it sounded like a good idea that must have meant it was "inspired by the Holy Spirit" and that I had to do it right away and ignore everything else in the process - including my family.

But Sonja says, wait:

Trust the delicacy of a slow unleashing. Welcome it if it must be slow, knowing the results are certain, as you might accept the dark weight of winter with absolute assurance that it will surely submit to a bright and gentle spring.

To Ponder, Reflect, and Discuss:

Do you wait patiently for the Holy Spirit to guide you, or do you take matters into your own hands and hope He catches up?
Can you think of a time when you wondered if the Holy Spirit would ever respond to you and then realized later that He had been working on it the whole time?

Feel free to comment on your own thoughts from this week's reading, your impressions and reflections, and/or your answers to these questions.

Next week, we'll cover Chapter 3. For the complete reading schedule and information about our Book Club, visit the Unleashed Book Club page.

Order your copy of Unleashed: How to Receive Everything the Holy Spirit Wants to Give You at Ave Maria Press

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