Giving the Gift of Time and Space to Grow

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?      Romans 2:4  NIV

    

    Forbearance requires slowing down to think.  It requires stepping into the shoes of another person to understand the challenges they are facing and to get a  glimpse of the pain that they feel.  We often want others to change or grow faster than they are changing or growing, without taking the time to understand the loss that change will bring to their lives or the obstacles that keep them from moving forward.

   The best way to open our hearts to let the Spirit grow forbearance in our lives is by reflecting on the forbearance that God has with us.  When you learn truth from Scripture, are you always instantly excited to change your life?  When God allows a difficult change to come into your life, do you always quickly embrace it?  The answer to both questions is clearly no.

    So whose shoes do you need to step into this week?  Are you expecting coworkers to adapt to your new idea as quickly as you?  Are you expecting your children to make better decisions than you did at their age?  Are you expecting your spouse to adjust to news that they just heard but that you known for weeks?

   This week, set aside some time to reflect, with God’s help, on a person with whom you have not been very forbearing.  What can you do to give them time and space to adjust and grow?  Are you praying for them or are you expecting them to change and grow without God’s help?  Ask God to help you discover one step that you can take this week to be more forbearing with this person.  Once you discover the step, ask the Holy Spirit to give you strength and wisdom to take it.

Keeping in Step with the Holy Spirit

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.   Galatians 5:16, 22-23  NIV

   Growing in life means that sometimes we have to ask ourselves hard questions.  Galatians 5:16 challenges us to ask ourselves, “Do I really want the life of God that comes through the Holy Spirit? I may say I want life in the Spirit, but do I really want it?

  

   The word “flesh” in the New Testament (see the verse above) simply refers to natural human desire seeking to satisfy itself in the easiest way possible without any regard to the long term consequences or to how it effects others.  The flesh doesn’t care if its choices lead to addiction or if its choices hurt other people.  It doesn’t love, it lusts.  It doesn’t trust, it manipulates.  It doesn’t care about truth, it will lie to get what it wants.

   The Spirit, on the other hand, is focused on love.  When we walk by the Spirit, our desires our fulfilled, but not at the expense of others.  The Spirit makes it possible for us to enjoy all of God’s blessings while at the same time sharing his blessings with others.

   Paul tells us to walk by the Spirit, meaning that life in the Spirit is a humble partnership with the Spirit in every moment of life.  At first, this is extremely difficult.  Our flesh fights against the Spirit’s work in us.  But as we discover the good life the Spirit wants to share with us and learn to simply trust him, a habit of surrendering to the Spirit becomes a more and more consistent part of our lives.

   Do you want the good life of the Spirit?  Set aside some quiet time this week to honestly ask yourself this question and consider your answer.  If your answer is yes, then begin a habit of surrendering yourself to God and inviting the Holy Spirit to fill you with his life.  Start every day by letting the Holy Spirit know that you want to be completely filled with the kingdom life of God so that God's will can be done in your life just as it is done in heaven!  Continue to give yourself to Spirit throughout the day whenever it comes to your mind or when you are feeling tempted by your flesh to go against God's will.