 I want to share something with you that will help you to continue strong in your walk with God as you face difficult seasons. Many believers aren't aware that the Holy Spirit has a hiding nature. Now when I say that He has a hiding nature, I do not mean that He abandons you. But Jesus said, I will give you another and He will never leave you. The Holy Spirit doesn't abandon you. The Holy Spirit doesn't reject you. Many believers imagine that if they make a mistake that the Holy Spirit flees at the first sign of that mistake. Well you have to ask yourself if you believe that, why would God take from you your only power to be holy as a punishment for you not being holy? That is a performance based legalistic perspective on the Holy Spirit. That is to think of Him in terms of religion and law. And we imagine that our performance determines His presence when it doesn't. Your performance does not determine His presence on your life. But these truths that I want to give you concerning the Holy Spirit and His hiding nature can help you to be established even against the most severe trials in your life. The Holy Spirit does not abandon you. He does not reject you. He does not leave you when you make a mistake. The Holy Spirit abides faithfully with you. He is the indwelling presence of God. The deposit on your life marking you forever indicating that you belong to God. The Holy Spirit abides. And if we understand the hiding nature of the Holy Spirit, again not that He abandons us. But if we can understand the hiding nature of the Holy Spirit then we can have a better grasp on what God is doing in certain seasons of our lives. Because like it or not there are seasons when you feel like God is a million miles away. There are seasons when you feel like nothing is working in your favor. There are seasons when you feel like even the hand of God is against you. As if God has just left you to the attacks of the enemy. Luke chapter 3 verses 20 and 21 say one day when the crowds were being baptized Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit in bodily form descended on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said you are my dearly loved son and you bring me great joy. The presence of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is often symbolized in the form of a dove. Symbolized. It doesn't mean the Holy Spirit is a dove. It just means that's one of the symbols of His presence. And as we look at Scripture we see that according to the Bible that doves have various different traits. For example the dove is considered innocent. See Matthew 10.16. The dove is considered pure. See Leviticus 14.22. In Nahum chapter 2 verse 7 we see that it's in the nature of doves to mourn. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. The gentle dove. Yes the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. Of course he'll surprise you. Of course it's his nature to come upon the scene suddenly as we saw in the book of Acts. Of course there is great force behind his power. Of course he is strong. Of course he speaks sternly, firmly and sometimes with righteous indignation. But the Holy Spirit is also gentle. How do you know? Well what's one of the fruits of the Spirit? Gentleness. How can he give gentleness if he doesn't have any? The Holy Spirit is gentle. That doesn't mean he's dull or boring. It just means he's gentle. There's a certain class about him. There's a certain air of royalty about his presence. True moves of the Holy Spirit have a certain elegance and beauty to them. There's a beauty and an elegance to the power of the Holy Spirit. Now let's look at the Holy Spirit's presence briefly in the song of Solomon. I'll show you several things here. The Holy Spirit appears a few times in the song of Solomon symbolically that is. He's the unquenchable fire of God's love for us. You can see that in song of Solomon chapter 8 verses 6 and 7. Of course that is a reference to the symbol of fire. He's the sweet and alluring wind that draws the two lovers together. That's song of Solomon 416. That wind is what fans into flame, that love that we have, that union with Christ. In song of Solomon 2.14 the young man tells the young woman, my dove is hiding behind the rocks, behind an outcrop on the cliff. Now this is not directly talking about the Holy Spirit. Of course because the young man is calling the young woman the dove. But what the Scripture reveals about doves in that verse is that doves have a hiding nature. In Jeremiah chapter 48 verse 28 let me show you something else. Jeremiah 48 28, you people of Moab flee from your towns and live in caves. Hide like doves that nest in the clefts of the rock. So the doves would nest and they would hide. That's in the nature of the dove to do. We see that of course in the Scripture revealed. In the book of Psalms the Israelites were said to have found treasures in plunder. Psalm 68 13, even those who lived among the sheepfolds found treasures. Doves with wings of silver and feathers of gold. So in the symbolism of who the Holy Spirit is we find that one of his traits is that hiding nature. Now what do I mean by that hiding nature? Again I emphasize I am not saying that he leaves you. And if anybody tells you that's what I said they didn't hear the full message. The Holy Spirit abides in you. But that hiding nature is to draw you closer. Now my daughter loves to play hide and seek. When I play that game I have to hide in a certain way that she can find me. Because if I hide too good she will not find me. And there's been times where she just went off to play with something else and I'm like weren't we playing hide and seek? She's like I couldn't find you. But I'll have to hide in such a way that I'm still playing the game but she can still see me around the corner or maybe through the door. Now I do not have to abandon my daughter to play hide and seek with her. Now I'm not suggesting that this is a game that we're playing. But I'm simply illustrating the point that God does not have to abandon you to take you to the place of testing. To take you to that place where you do not sense him. Now I'm about to say something that many might misunderstand so I want to make sure that I'm doing a good job communicating it. And I want to make sure I'm saying this correctly. The more you mature in faith the closer you come to Jesus. The less you rely on experience. The less you rely on feelings. The less you rely on miracles. And the more you rely on your trust in his word. See I think much of the church has it backwards. We imagine that if I'm constantly having these encounters and there's nothing wrong with having these encounters. But far too many believers are reliant upon the emotion of those encounters and they panic when they can't feel God in their emotions. They lose their whole sense of identity. Maybe God is trying to teach you what it is to truly have faith. Yes it's good to have encounters with God. We sense his presence here in these meetings. And it's a wonderful thing. I look forward to it. I love when I sense the presence of God in my life. I love when I sense the physical power on my physical being. I love when I see miracles. I love when I can feel him in my emotions. When my being is responding to him and there's nothing wrong with feeling him in your emotions. People often criticize moves of God saying well you're just being emotional. Well did not God create the emotions? Is there any part of our being that wasn't created to respond to God? We don't pursue emotional experience but emotional experience sometimes is the result of having a true encounter with God. People often ask do you want a true encounter with God or do you just want emotion? But that assumes that encounters with God have no emotion. How can you stand in the presence of God and be aware that he's near sense his goodness and his love and not be moved? But still to rely upon that as the test as the measure against which you hold your life and encounters with God the test, the measure against which you hold your spiritual development if I'm not feeling, feeling, feeling I must be doing something wrong. My friend, you don't understand the hiding nature of the Holy Spirit. I'll show you why he hides. Number one, when the Holy Spirit hides and when I say he hides I mean that he's withdrawing the experience in terms of our emotions, our physical being and that human experience. In the spirit we have to learn to encounter him 24-7 but we'll never be able to do that if we're relying upon the outer shells of who we are to indicate to us what's happening in our spirit. Isaiah 45-15 says verily thou art a God that hideeth thyself O God of Israel, the Savior So number one, when the Holy Spirit seems to be hiding from you number one, he's testing you Granted, there are times when you're not going to be able to sense his presence because of sin and because of compromise but that isn't always the case So you have to do self-evaluation You have to examine your heart before God You have to say, like the Psalmist wrote, search me O God Be vulnerable before him Ask him to reveal to you any sin or compromise and if you find none then stop fretting about it because then you fall into the trap of legalism torment yourself saying there must be something I've done wrong somewhere along the lines Well thank God our repentance doesn't necessarily rely upon our memory because if we had to remember every sin and repent of every sin verbally then we would be in trouble because we've probably done so many things wrong we can't remember everything we've done but instead of panicking we realize, okay, if there's no sin, there's no compromise something is happening here I must know what that is Second Chronicles 32-31 Listen to what it says here Watch this now Second Chronicles 32-31 However, when ambassadors arrived from Babylon to ask about the remarkable events that had taken place in the land watch this now God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him and to see what was really in his heart There's a great testing that comes in those seasons Great crushing is what produces great anointing There will be seasons in your life where you will feel as though everyone around you has abandoned you I'm not encouraging isolation we as believers are to live in fellowship but there are some seasons when no matter how close others even try to be to you there's just this sense of disconnect where you feel no one really knows you no one really understands you where others criticize your love for God calling you a fanatic saying you've lost your mind saying you're taking it too far and they criticize it because they don't understand it and the enemy lies, tempts, and tries to torment he speaks things and we with the word of God and the shield of faith defeat those lies but still there's this sense of the question God, where are you? if you fail a test you have to take it again I remember there was a season in our ministry where I was so stressed about one of the projects that we were doing and I said to the Lord and this I am not proud of I'm very ashamed to say this but I'm being vulnerable so you can learn from my mistakes and things just weren't happening the way I wanted to see them happening very ambitious I have a lot of drive I'm a perfectionist in some ways and I want to try to do my absolute best and I set these goals and expectations on myself put those on myself and that can be torture and many of you who are like that know what that's like the Holy Spirit has had to help me say why are you putting standards on yourself that I didn't that's what Pharisees do they raise standards God did not and so I remember I came to this place and I said to the Lord again foolishly speaking I said Lord if you don't come through for this I'm just going to have to quit the ministry and you know what the Holy Spirit spoke to me he said then quit and I'll raise somebody else I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, no, we're good, we're good well this project took me like three years to do I kid you not this one project we were trying to do this was probably I was maybe I want to say 17, 18 years old we're just starting this thing out and by comparison to what we're doing now this was nothing but at that time it was just very difficult and I'm pushing and pushing and pushing and I remember a whole year goes by and I find myself frustrated again and in my foolishness I repeated what I had said and I don't know if this was verbatim with the Holy Spirit spoke word for word but this is the message the idea he dropped in my spirit when I said that out loud the Holy Spirit spoke you just bought yourself another year and I realized I had been failing the test I repented another year goes by still trying to push this through I came to that frustration again and this time I said Lord I know you can do it I surrender, I give it to you and he came through God wants to trust you and when I say trust you he wants to entrust you he wants to entrust you with things to steward think about what he's given you think about how he's raised you so far think about the favor he's put on your life and sometimes we're so focused on then and there that we're not thankful for here and now and if we're not careful when we sense and we feel like God isn't doing anything he's not showing up, he's watching to see how you respond because here's why it's in the testing it's in these moments these seasons that he begins to purify your motives because only someone who is pure in heart will continue to serve God even if they don't get what they wanted out of it lift your hands and say test me Lord test me Lord you write it in the comments section test me Lord you gotta watch out for those tests you ask for God to use you he'll test you before he uses you you ask for God to bless you he will test you before he blesses you and he'll test you and to God it's not a matter of time, what's time to him a decade to us is nothing to God, he'll test you again and again and again and again and some of us are stuck because we just haven't passed the test because every time we hit those seasons where we feel like God is distant we fall apart we start complaining we go back to our old sinful habits we go back to the old nature and the old way of thinking but we start identifying with our struggles and saying things like well I guess God just doesn't love me or I guess just nothing good could ever happen for me and we start to see ourselves as just the one who always struggles and we fall back into these old patterns and because of that we don't strengthen ourselves in the spirit God will bless you but only after he tests you and then when he blesses you he'll test you again because he wants to see what you do when you finally get what you wanted from him think about what Joseph went through he obeyed God and was eventually put in prison for it what do you do when doing the right things seems to put you in the wrong place when having integrity costs you when standing up for what's right costs you do you fall apart and say God what did you do I thought I did what was right now you're supposed to why did you do what was right you see Joseph eventually came to Potiphar's house if I were him I may have looked around well I'm in charge I control wealth this is the dream come true I would have thought it was the fulfillment be careful what happens when God finally does bless you don't lose your awareness of him it's in the testing that motives are purified number two he purifies you the Holy Spirit will go through these seasons where he seems to withdraw his presence remember he abides in you but in terms of your emotions in terms of those physical sensations that we sometimes get in these meetings he'll withdraw in that sense for a season why Hosea 1012 so to yourselves in righteousness reap and mercy break up your follow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you when you sense that distance between you and God what happens you begin to seek him and so when the Holy Spirit begins to pool like this what happens it alerts us and it causes us to realize that something in us needs to be purified something in us needs to be worked on now that's a constant reality which is why the Holy Spirit is constantly leading us to deeper places but when he does this in certain seasons where you feel that distance he's purifying something in you these are difficult places indeed no one wants to talk about this we'd rather hear about the moment of breakthrough or the day of the miracle we're talking about that too but if I don't prepare you with these truths then when you face difficult times some of you may think God abandoned you or I don't feel or sense in fact I found that the closer I've come to him the less I even need those experiences and encounters that we would call feeling God why because I go from experiencing God in just body and emotion to actually just walking with him in spirit and there's this consistency this stability to where you're not going up and down one Sunday you're standing worshiping God praising him and by the next Sunday all I'm defeated again the enemy got me I want to walk with him in such a way that even in the midst of difficult circumstances I have a firm foundation that I'll clean to him even when life throws at me unexpected tragedy and trials not saying God where are you where have you been not allowing myself to get bitter and angry at God for not doing everything exactly like I thought he should be doing to you in those seasons where you feel like he's not there there will be seasons where you're going to feel him close praise God for those there will be seasons where you don't feel him but he's still there praise God for those seasons too so number one he's testing you number two he's purifying you number three he's drawing you closer he is not leaving you he is leading you to deeper places as he walks on ahead he fully expects for you to follow it's like he says follow me come this way he starts walking why are you leaving me the Holy Spirit says come here I want to show you something he walks away and we start panicking wait where are you going my friend when he walks ahead he's not abandoning you he's summoning you to the mountain he's calling you to deeper places Acts 1727 says his purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him though he is not far from any one of us Jeremiah 2913 says if you look for me wholeheartedly you will find me how many times have you heard someone say well I tried to seek God and I couldn't find him you're a liar you are a liar let God be true and every man a liar you say David that's harsh that's the truth if you say I've tried to seek God with all my heart nothing you're lying either you're lying to me or you're lying to yourself but you're lying because the Bible says that if I look for him wholeheartedly I will find him that's a fact so if I haven't found him yet it just means I haven't looked not truly God's not hiding in the sense that he doesn't want to be discovered he's pulling us in deeper places you know he likes to shake things up he will disrupt things that distract you well just ask Jonah God gives him a command he says go Jonah says no and he goes the opposite direction and what does God do he doesn't just let him get away with it the Bible says that a wind came from the presence of the Lord I believe that was the Holy Spirit and it destroyed and it was destroying the ship God will destroy your means of disobedience God will destroy what you're using to disobey if you're in a relationship you shouldn't be in God will destroy it if you're going somewhere you shouldn't go God will make it to where you can't get there if you're participating in something you shouldn't be participating in God will make you miserable in it God will disrupt now you say God isn't disruptive yes he is I didn't say he's destructive which means he changes your plans without your permission people talk about Jonah and the whale what about Jonah and the wind that is what destroyed any chance he had of stepping outside of the call of God the Lord loves you too much to leave you in your disobedience he loves you too much to leave you to yourself the Lord loves you too much to let you destroy your life you think he's just going to stand by and watch you be distracted and wander aimlessly know my friend when God marks you and calls you there's nothing you can do to get away from that nothing you can do and so sometimes part of that sense of withdrawing because when things go wrong we feel like God's not there so part of that sense of his withdrawing is really just him trying to get our attention and he will do what it takes to get your attention he will do what it takes to cause you to turn back to him there's a reason why you're unsatisfied outside of the call of God there's a reason why you're miserable if you try to go back to the things of this world you're ruined for anything less than his presence he will shake things up he will remove what you're depending on he will remove he will remove what is familiar he will remove what you're relying upon think about some of the things that have happened in the past three years alone how much our world has changed in the past three years there's no going back to normal everyone can feel it something's different now something's different in our world that's not a doomsday prophecy it just is but you know I can't tell you how many believers came to me saying I'm so worried now I don't know what I'm going to do the financial system may collapse I said well what was your faith in and to many of us when we started hearing about financial collapse to many of us it actually revealed that our trust for provision wasn't in God it was in the system and then when that got shaken up we found oh it was God taking care of me all along when we heard about disease when we heard about war when we heard about unrest all of these things caused the heart to become unsettled but when you're unsettled when you're filled with fear let that reveal to you that you're misplaced trust let your fear reveal to you your misplaced trust and so sometimes the Holy Spirit will disrupt things make you uncomfortable it's actually drawing you to deeper places I don't know what I would do if it wasn't for the constant correction of the Holy Spirit now guys as you continue to pursue the call of God on your life as you continue to step into what God has destined for you to do you will face seasons where God seems distant you will face seasons where you wonder if he's near to you and it's tempting to get angry with him it's tempting to become fearful it's tempting to ask a frantic list of questions what did I do is he mad where should I go what is wrong and we fret and we worry and we work ourselves up have peace have peace if you sense the pooling that was drawing he's not saying go away he's saying come up here he's not saying leave me alone he's saying come closer and we begin to see that nothing around us, nothing in this world mattered as much as we thought it did it doesn't matter as much as we thought it did and we step into that perfect walk of faith one day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the sea of Galilee great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God he noticed two empty boats at the water's edge where the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets stepping into one of the boats Jesus asked Simon its owner to push it out into the water so he sat in the boat and talked the crowds from there now I'm at verse 4 of Luke chapter 5 when he had finished speaking he said to Simon now go out where it is deeper and let down your nets and catch some fish verse 5 master Simon replied we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing but if you say so I'll let the nets down again and this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear a shout for help brought their partners in the other boat and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking what the disciples had attempted to do in their own strength what the disciples had attempted to do by their own power with their own knowledge they were actually able to succeed in with the help of God's power these were fishermen they knew what they were doing they caught nothing it was only after they found the Lord to make use of their boat that their boat was blessed turn to somebody next to you and say blessings on my boat you have to understand the law of stewardship you have to understand the law of stewardship the law of stewardship states that if I do well with what God has already entrusted to me then He will increase my responsibilities now whenever God increases someone God doesn't increase you just for the sake of you or as James says to consume it upon their own lusts I want you to take a moment to think about this you watching online do the same maybe you can even write it in the comments section who would you bless what ministries would you bless who would you help what difference would you make if God suddenly were to triple your resources would you help your struggling parents help an orphanage feed more of the hungry would you go to your pastor and say pastor we can get the building would you help that friend in need who can't buy their groceries would you bless that single mother who can't pay her rent I think you would you online as well I think you would the only step that keeps us from getting there is fear we say things like God if you bless me I'll start giving no my friend God will meet all your needs whether you give or not because you're his child period he's not going to abandon you and no he's not going to curse you if you don't give that's just not true it's not even in the Bible not in the New Testament sense anyway you not giving to this ministry is not going to curse you you can you can leave here without giving a sense I'll still love you Jesus will still love you and you'll still be blessed you'll still be provided for God will still take care of you you know why because he loves you because you are his child