Like a Dove - Grace Shaw

I have such an affection for the image of the Holy Spirit depicted as a dove. This is just one of the many images of the dove that litter my life:

I know the term “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” can lead many Christians to pause, and for good reason — especially if someone is trying to persuade you that some second, gnostic baptism is required for Christian salvation. Not so. But the first time I had friends pray over me for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I was 22 years old, and it was a day that profoundly deepened my freedom in Jesus. The image of the dove has been a reminder ever since of that incredible memory with God! (Ask me and I’ll tell you more sometime.)

Anyways, this past Sunday was the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord in the church calendar, when we remember that time the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus. If you’ve never used the Pray As You Go app, here’s your sign to do it. The daily Pray As You Go passage for Sunday was, fittingly, the story of Jesus’ baptism from Luke 3:15-16, 21-22. What shocked me about hearing it this time was this verse:

“And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.” Luke 3:22

Bodily form? Bodily form. An actual dove. An actual dove. I can’t explain what it was that struck me about this other than that as I pondered it in the Lord’s company, a folk song drifted across the radio waves of my soul:

“If I had wings / like Noah’s dove, / I’d fly the river / to the one I love…”

This version, specifically. You might know it.

And as I tuned into my memory of that song, Jesus showed up right before my eyes (eyes of the heart) with a dove in His hand, extended to me. And let me just say: the dove was a very real dove, who surprised me by giving me a very real olive branch. (Genesis 8:11) I was stunned.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling just lost enough lately that all it took was the Holy Spirit in the form of a physical dove to reorient my frightened little self. Like a child, crying over having just taken a fall on the playground, and their mother or father says: “Look! Do you see the birds? Look at them! They’re so beautiful!” And I wipe my eyes to see.

Sitting there, holding that olive branch, the bird was God’s wordless way of showing me I have been found. He has not left me lost. There is no deeper relief than to be found by Him. May you be found by Him today, beloved.

🕊️

Grace