Does the Holy Spirit work like this?

[traillius]

Last night, I had my bible, and I prayed to the Holy Spirit, that it would show me what it wanted me to learn. Then I closed my eyes and opened the bible without looking. I am struggling with pain and sorrow, because of my past, and the present sufferings of my wife. I don’t know how to explain, but the page I opened was the very first page of the book of lamentations, with an intro. The book is about the sorrow over the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity into Babylon. Was this the holy spirit, coincidence, confirmation bias, random chance, or something else. I don’t think it was physical tendency(i.e. the book binding had a crease on that page) , because I can’t recall having read the book of lamentations in several years.
Perhaps I am overthinking it. Your thoughts.

 

[Warrenton]

Hi: I think the Holy Ghost can reveal truth in almost any imaginable way, and if you found the comfort and wisdom you sought, then it would be right to give thanks for that.

One should be careful about using the Bible as an oracle, though, because if abused, it could become a kind tempting of the Lord. And if the Lord decided not to answer through that medium, our faith could be hurt and we might feel abandoned, when what the Lord really wants is for us to look in a new direction.

I hope your trials work themselves out for you. God Bless!

 

[Joe_5859]

There was a thread on this a few weeks back:

Opening the Bible at random?

I think Warrenton summed it up quite well, though. The Holy Spirit certainly can speak to us through such means. But we want to avoid treating the Bible as a Magic 8 Ball. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you were doing in this instance, though.

 

[m134e5]

I think the Holy Spirit works this way sometimes- it probably happens when you don’t expect it though. Don’t treat the bible like a fortune cookie (that has messages that tend to be very vague, so pretty much anyone reading them can find some truth in them) and try and apply any passage to any situation and see that as a message from God.

 

[CB_Catholic]

Sometimes God works in unexpected ways, but that is not really the way to read the Bible.

Having said that, I had a friend who gave birth to a baby girl and the baby had the cord wrapped around it’s neck and had aspirated the meconium. The baby was not expected to live through the night as her kidneys were failing and she could not breathe on her own. of course, they asked for prayers and everyone started praying. My friend, in her grief, picked up her Bible and just opened it, and it was to the passage that says “Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning.” She thought that meant that God would eventually heal her of the loss of her baby.

The next morning a nurse ran into her room and announced that her baby had started to urinate, her kidneys were functioning, and she was breathing much better, and now the doctors were hopeful the baby would survive. The nurse’s name was JOY. How’s that for a word from the Lord?

That poor dying baby girl is now a strikingly beautiful young woman.

 

[God_sent]

First and foremost the third person of the Holy Trinity should always be spoken of with the highest reverence of human words…for the Most Holy Spirit is the emanating love of the Father and the Son, who indeed moves hearts and minds, and should never be spoken of as (it)…pray…pray…pray and God will indeed lead you. prayers sent for true discerment, which begins with worshipping God in an awe inspiring way, within our every thought word and action.:angel1:…

 

[Joe_5859]

Sometimes God works in unexpected ways, but that is not really the way to read the Bible.

Having said that, I had a friend who gave birth to a baby girl and the baby had the cord wrapped around it’s neck and had aspirated the meconium. The baby was not expected to live through the night as her kidneys were failing and she could not breathe on her own. of course, they asked for prayers and everyone started praying. My friend, in her grief, picked up her Bible and just opened it, and it was to the passage that says “Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning.” She thought that meant that God would eventually heal her of the loss of her baby.

The next morning a nurse ran into her room and announced that her baby had started to urinate, her kidneys were functioning, and she was breathing much better, and now the doctors were hopeful the baby would survive. The nurse’s name was JOY. How’s that for a word from the Lord?

That poor dying baby girl is now a strikingly beautiful young woman.

What an awesome story! Thank you for sharing that.

 

[puzzleannie]

Last night, I had my bible, and I prayed to the Holy Spirit, that it would show me what it wanted me to learn. Then I closed my eyes and opened the bible without looking. I am struggling with pain and sorrow, because of my past, and the present sufferings of my wife. I don’t know how to explain, but the page I opened was the very first page of the book of lamentations, with an intro. The book is about the sorrow over the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity into Babylon. Was this the holy spirit, coincidence, confirmation bias, random chance, or something else. .

perhaps the Holy Spirit can work in this way, not up to me to dictate. or perhaps you drew, out of your own experience, a lesson from what you read by coincidence, and you might easily have drawn another valuable lesson equally pertinent to your current situation from any other passage. The point is you opened the bible with the intent to hear and listen to the Word of God and were open to what the Holy Spirit was saying to you. In such an open, docile, receptive disposition one could easily find a Word for themselves in any passage of scripture.

 

[traillius]

sorry to hijack my own thread, but here goes…
Does the Holy Spirit have a gender? Or what pronoun should be used when referring to the Holy Spirit. And do the H and S always need to be capitalized, grammatically speaking. I am not sure how I write or type the name is a moral issue, but maybe it is. So grammatically or morally, how does one write type or refer to with pronouns, the Holy Spirit?

 

[CB_Catholic]

sorry to hijack my own thread, but here goes…
Does the Holy Spirit have a gender? Or what pronoun should be used when referring to the Holy Spirit. And do the H and S always need to be capitalized, grammatically speaking. I am not sure how I write or type the name is a moral issue, but maybe it is. So grammatically or morally, how does one write type or refer to with pronouns, the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit, being God, has no gender. However, He is usually referred to using the masculine pronoun. Gramatically the H and S should be capitalized. I don’t know how this would be a moral issue, unless one purposely intended disrespect. Proper names in our language are capitalized, and those titles given to the Deity.