They were two socially similar but spiritually different characters who teach us about the presence and gifts of the Spirit. The well-heeled young man’s query had a nervous edge to it: "What good deed must I do to obtain eternal life?"

Jesus answered the question the man did not ask. He had asked about eternal life but Jesus responded, "If you want to enter into life…." -- not a word about eternal life. But we’ll come back to that. For reasons that are unknown, Jesus counseled the young man to follow the Commandments, but the guy asked "Which ones?" like this was a negotiation. Then he asked, "What else do I need to do?"

Jesus saw that the man’s priorities were badly mixed up. He was possessed by his possessions and wealth. Jesus responded to the "What else?" question by going back to his earlier response about "entering into life" -- and here the usual English versions betray us when they translate the Greek, teleioui, as ‘perfect.’ It’s not ‘perfect,’ but rather, be whole, complete, integrated. Jesus said, "If you want to enter into life be whole, complete, integrated." Be possessed by life not by things.

Then there was Zacchaeus who was also rich, but not young, and slight of stature. He made his fortune as the chief tax collector on the lucrative caravan road between Jerusalem and Jericho. As all tax collectors, he wrote his own rules after enforcing those of the Roman procurate. The righteous vilified his extortion, graft, and greed, and shunned him in the synagogue.

When Jesus passed through town, Zacchaeus wanted to see him. The crowd blocked the short man’s view and, given his reputation, they probably elbowed him out whenever he tried to get to the front of the line. So Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed a tree. Jesus stopped at the tree and called the tax collector down, saying, I am staying at your place tonight.

The locals howled because no self-respecting messiah would hang out with a sinful tax collector. None of the spectators anticipated what came next. Joyously moved, the tax-man, without prompt, announced that he was giving half of his wealth to the poor and repaying those he cheated four times more than he extorted! And some jaws bounced off the pavement, like a child’s super-ball!

Without judging the rich young man, he was simply not ready for the Spirit, nor was his heart prepared to choose abundant life and wholeness over abundant riches and possessions. Zacchaeus was. His life was shaken from its lethargy, he was moved, ready, on fire, and did not yet recognize the Spirit until he looked down at Jesus from his perch. He threw himself open to the Spirit.

Have you ever had an experience of the Holy Spirit? Have you ever felt a great burning fire in you, even if you couldn’t name it? Have you ever changed your life because you heard the call to do so? Have you ever felt as if you were brimming over with the holy qualities of love, grace, peace, generosity, and joy? If so, you’ve probably had a charismatic encounter with the Spirit.

There are times when our lives are going in a certain direction and something happens. It might be a trauma, or a powerful insight, or a tsunami of grace, or the majestic dawning that you are really alive, or the breathtaking awareness that you are the recipient of Divine love. That is the Holy Spirit. And you know that if you were going north, in short order you’ll be headed south, full-tilt! That’s the way it is with the Spirit: it is a transforming fire that consumes the old way as it illumines and sets you on the new!

I debated sharing my first experience with the Holy Spirit because I am afraid people will take my experience as a template for their own because I am a minister. Don’t do that! The Spirit will come to you in its own way and when you are ready. So, my first experience of the Spirit was an intense feeling of the immensity of God’s grace and Jesus’ love. Nothing good or bad had happened to me, I had not sought or planned it; it just happened. As the days unfolded, the Spirit was transforming my faith from fear-based to joy-full, from constrained to liberated, and from timidity and uncertainty to the very real awareness of being changed and surrounded by Love -- embraced by the Spirit.

Over the next months I realized that I was intuitively adopting what Richard Foster calls in our study book for this series, "Holy Habits." I felt differently toward people, I hungered to know more about Jesus’ life and teachings, and I consciously began making decisions on the basis of an emerging spiritual morality. I kept coming back to Jesus’ sacrificial love and listening as the Spirit called me in a profoundly unmistakable way to which I could only respond, my life is yours, use me. Such is the deeply personal path toward wholeness and integration: looking, questioning, listening, opening, changing, appropriating.

Flames did not dance over my head but I was on fire. I didn’t speak the indecipherable language of angels, -- to name two gifts of the Spirit described at Pentecost and in I Corinthians 14. While I was no great sinner, my experience of grace and love exposed the lack of abundant life, pockets of emptiness, and unknown, unrealized potentials. It was as if Jesus’ words to the young man were addressed to me, "If you want to enter into life, you must be whole, complete, integrated." In my life, the gift of wholeness from the Spirit started with I Corinthians 13, the love chapter: "but if I have not love, I am nothing at all."

In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the root meaning of Spirit is ‘breath,’ the source and sustainer of all life. I was experiencing and beginning to live into the Breath of Life. I was, in Foster’s words, "abandoning myself to the Divine" life-giving force. I began to love with abandon in direct proportion to my growing embrace of the Spirit. I gave myself to the eternal words that were gripping my soul, "There shall always be three lasting qualities, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love" (I Corinthians 13:13).

We will or we may each, in our own way and time, "enter into life," into the wholeness, integration, and abundance that God intends for us. I pray that you will be open to receive the unique gifts that the Holy Spirit will breathe into you! Imagine turning your life around, turning it over to the Divine Spirit. Imagine consciously living each day with these gifts of the Spirit manifesting themselves in you: love and joy, patience and peace, gentleness and kindness, centered and quiet, faithful and generous, meaningful and purposeful, and in complete union with Christ.