Walking in the Spirit

Galatians 5:16...25

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the desires of the flesh, for these are opposed to each other......25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

This was the key passage I was teaching for a workshop for our Growing Leaders Conference at BBC this week. The point was that to walk in the Spirit we must practice the presence of God, the person of the Holy Spirit. I talked about how the Spirit of God never leaves us and that when we cultivate an awareness of his presence, all of our life is changed. All of our decision-making is changed. All ofour behavior and choices are changed because we know He knows, and we want to make him smile.

I talked about the danger of leading or walking alone, that we can do it alone for a while, we can fake it for a while, but eventually we will hit the wall. Bottom line, God made us to be in community, with him and other believers.

So, how can we be fearful of anything when we are aware that the same God who breathed all of creation into existence is the same God who loved us so much that he made provision for our sin debt? How can we be fearful when he says ""I will never leave you nor forsake you." Heb. 13:5 How can we fall into depression when we rehearse the reality that God loves us, that he sought us out and revealed himself to us, when we rehearse the reality that he never leaves us alone but has made provision for our every need?

Now there's a conunudrum! He has made provision for our every need. But he who is omniscient gets to define our need, and that's a good thing. Most times, what I define as need is very temporal and earthy, but God sees the big picture. He has long vision and can see what I need to be prepared for eternity.

Anyway, back to my topic. Walking in the Spirit. This was a tough week. An assault from the evil one and an assault from the flesh. People that I care about making bad decisions - the kind that I can see will end in destruction, and they refuse my counsel. Heartache. Hmmm, guess I make God feel that way too often. Too much to do in too little time - perhaps some of my own bad decision making. Technology that fails.

So by the end of the week, I was fearfully close to tears too often. I had gotten off the walk...filling my time with people, and work, and stuff and noise and no stillness. That's the point. You have to have stillness to practice the presence of God. You have to make a space quiet enough that you can think, that you can rehearse just who you are and who he is in relation to you. Funny how it seems like we would prefer to wallow in self-pity than to walk courageously in the Spirit, or is that a work of the flesh? That wallowing in self-pity, that self-isolation?

I think I will stop writing and go sit upstairs for a while in the quiet. I will imagine Him sitting in the recliner, there where he can see out the window on the deck, and we will watch the stars together.