My dad

I went home this weekend and saw something that my dad had written on our 'family info board' on the refrigerator. It was "What pleases God?" And one of my sisters wrote 'obedience, like doing the dishes when you are told'. And then I wrote 'To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God." My dad brought it up later, and said that the Lord had been asking him that question, "What pleases God?" And Dad said after few days of pondering and thinking about all of the things that please God, he said the Lord gave him the answer, which was simply that no flesh can please Him. Only spirit can.

It just makes me want to live by my spirit alone, and to only do things or say things that are in my spirit to do or say. Paul tells us to "Walk by the spirit". Notice, I did not say my 'heart' because my heart is wicked, full of emotions and will lead me astray. My spirit is the place where Jesus resides. The part of me that He washed clean and is making whole. The part of me that is eternal. The part of me that aches when I hear the gospel, that has compassion on those around me, that loves God's way of doing things, even when I don't understand them.

My spirit is also normally the first thing that I starve. I pay the least attention to the part of me that is going to last forever. I walk around with my brain, eat with my mouth, read and study school work in my head, and the first thing that goes when I get just a little busy is...you guessed it...my spiritual food. Reading my bible, looking for God's fingerprints on everything, fellowshipping about God with other believers, getting before the Lord and finding out what He wants to show me this day, and then this day... and then instead just becoming numb with worldly distractions. And then I stop fighting sin, because complacency sets in. "Be killing sin or it will be killing you" is such a true phrase it's scary. It paints the picture of a proactive life of anticipating and preventing and fighting.

So here am I, with a starved spirit, a full belly and a crowded mind. And still I am tempted to roll over and say 'Thus is life'. But then my spirit screams NO! There IS more in this life. There is more of the Lord to be discovered, He has more to teach me, to bless me, to sanctify me. He will finish the work that He's started in me. And I desire to walk in His ways, deep down in my starved inner being. That desire is just weak because I don't feed and nurture it. As with any relationship, it takes two. And here am I in a relationship with a perfect being, who only wants the absolute best for me, and thus I can only blame myself for any distance or disconnectedness.