As the Lord leads the Church forward we must re-consecrate ourselves to what He wants to do, how He wants to do it, in the time He wants to do it. All of this entails surrender to His will and a death to what we want. Jesus faced this in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we, as His followers, must as well. There is no path around the Gethsemane, other than to miss what the Lord wants to do. We don't have to like His plan, but we must surrender to it in order for Him to entrust the mighty outpouring that He has promised He will send.
In this Christmas season, the world misses the focal point of Jesus. In like manner, the Church has habitually spurned the Holy Spirit and His role in the Christmas story is no exception. Without the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Jesus), Jesus would not have been born.
Mark Biteler