Turned on the hot water for a shower and just a trickle came out.  Rats!  When I tried one of those new, low pressure shower heads but hardly a dribble came out.  Finally, I’d had enough. I shut off the main valve to the house and tore the shower control apart.  Surprisingly, everything seemed to be in good shape.

But then I discovered the problem.  Shining a light into the pipe, I discovered old deposits of groodah (that’s a term professionals use), clogging up the hot water pipe.  It wasn’t easy to remove that stuff; it had built up over time and was hardened onto the pipe.  Little by little, I loosened it up, but I’m sure there’s more to be done.  But now the shower works better.

When people sing and pray to be “filled with the Holy Spirit,” I suspect “filling” isn’t the problem.  After all, Jesus said:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  –  (John 14:16-17)

The apostle Peter reminded fellow believers, “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life…”  (2 Peter 1:3a)

My shower problem was not caused by a lack of water pressure, but by old crusty deposits in my pipes.  It had lots of water and plenty of pressure, but didn’t let the water flow through.  We can be “filled” with the Spirit but still not work right.  The Spirit is given to us to flow through us, transforming how we act in the world.  Sometimes, instead of asking God to fill us, we might better spend some time scraping away the groodah inside our pipes.