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Monday, September 1, 2014

A Spirit Filled Life, Am I Living It?

I am reading a book about having a Spirit Filled Life, I'll post a review when I'm finished.  It's made me stop and wonder if I am living a Spirit filled life.  Baptists don't talk a lot about a Spirit Filled Life, and I'm not theologically in line with the Charismatic view of a Spirit Filled life.  To have a life filled with the Holy Spirit, I have to completely surrender myself to His will and His control.  Have I done that?  Do I even know how to do that?  I am finding that the idea of faith the size of a mustard seed is rare.  Most of us have faith the size of a neutron, maybe an atom.  A few have faith the size of a single cell, maybe a cluster of a few cells, but Mustard seed, that's hard for most of us.  Complete abandonment of even one aspect of our lives is so hard.  We always want to have at least part of the control, part of the say.  It's our lives, and we want to control to some aspect.

I am finding just how hard total and complete surrender is.  I have dreams and visions and ideas that I want, and it's hard to surrender those things to God.  It's hard to trust God because often His plan is not our plan, and we assume our plan is better.  It's not, but we assume it is.  We fight and we struggle to regain control, just to fight and struggle to give up control and be filled with the Spirit.

I'm admitting that I am struggling to give up control.  I am tired and worn and I want to give away all my life and all that I am.  I just don't really know how.  I guess these are the time that we fall in prayer, and we cry out for the Lord to take our lives.  I don't know how to give it, so I just ask that He takes it.  It's time like this that make me believe that free will in nonsense.  If I had free will, I could just give myself to God, but I don't have the ability.  I can't just make a choice and everything is great and easy and simple.  Tell a man filled with rage to just choose to be at peace.  Tell a woman consumed by hurt to just stop hurting.  Tell a person to just give their entire life and being to God and be Spirit filled.  It takes some surrender, but the ability to just do it?  If you think it's that easy, you are living in fantasy land.  It takes someone stronger than me to do it.  It takes God, so I pray He takes all of me.

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