EXPAND TO READ: 1 CORINTHIANS 2 (HCSB)
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
SIN (verses 1-3): I have often felt the necessity to keep my mouth shut in moments that I felt like the Holy Spirit was urging me to speak Your wisdom. I have done this because I have not felt confident in my speaking in the moment about You, Father. Please forgive me for this disobedience to You. Forgive me for not always being willing to speak to the amazing testimony and wisdom You have given me through Your word, Your truth, and the experiences You have helped me to learn from. Help me to be better and more confident at speaking the story You have given me more openly, Father, regardless of whether or not it comes through as “brilliance of speech or wisdom” to others. As long as I am professing Your truth, then that is what matters, not how beautifully I articulate.
PROMISE (verse 12): The promise You make to us, if we are willing to accept it, is that of Spiritual wisdom freely given to us from You. You give us a Spirit that blesses us with the ability to understand the truth You want us to understand. You give this to us freely and openly, but it is up to us to accept it for what it is. Help me to be better at accepting Your Spirit of truth and wisdom in my heart and mind, Father, so that I may be better at knowing what You want me to know in this life.
ATTITUDE (verse 13): Help me in this area, Father. Help me to have a confident and discerning attitude towards Your wisdom and not my own. Help me to be more confident in the spiritual wisdom You have blessed me with through the Holy Spirit. Additionally, help me to have an attitude of discernment to be able to better navigate and understand the differences between my human wisdom and Your wisdom. I often mix the two together to develop my own “truths” as I navigate the difficulties of this life, but You tell us here that there is a huge difference between the wisdom of my flesh and the wisdom freely given by You through the Spirit. Help me to be better at this adjustment, Father, as I navigate further down the path of Your will for my life and develop a further and deeper relationship with You.
COMMAND (verse 15): In this verse, You tell us that the spiritual person can evaluate everything, but that nobody can evaluate them. I do struggle with this command, Father. Essentially, You are telling me to be open and willing to share the truths that You reveal to me, but do not try and force it onto others when I see they are not following Your truths and commands. I do often feel passionate towards certain truths that You reveal to me and it upsets me that others do not feel the same passion towards it after I reveal it to them. Help me to be better at simply giving others Your wisdom and then letting go so that they can navigate this life on their own with the information provided. It is not up to me to change the way of others, rather it’s only up to me to give them the information and tools they need to make the choices for themselves.
EXAMPLE (verses 14): The example You give here is such a powerful reminder to me, Father. I often feel like I need to “push” Your way and Your truth onto others instead of understanding that they have the free will to make their own choices in this life, just as I do. I often feel the “my way or the highway” attitude towards others, not recognizing that to the unbeliever Your truth may seem like “foolishness” in their minds as they are not committed to a relationship with You or maybe even do not believe in You at all. I have to be able to relay Your wisdom to others without feeling the need to “push an agenda” for lack of better words. Help me to become better at conveying Your message and leaving it at that. Help me to be better at spreading Your truth confidently in a way that is simply spreading the word for others to see and hear without feeling like I have to push them harder in all situations. I know that it is Your will that needs to be done and that You have given us all free will to be able to freely choose You or not, but I do struggle with this when I see others struggling in their faith or just flat out denying Your existence. I want to argue with them and push the amazing testimony You’ve given to me with the expectation that they convert to a true believer and follower, but that is not my place or my job. Due to our free will and Your yearning for us to freely love You and freely want a relationship with You, I have to step back and ensure I remain a conveying of information and not a dictator. Thank You for this amazing example, Father.
*DAILY NOTE: I have always felt a lack of confidence in the topic of my own Spiritual wisdom. As a result, I have often not spoken up when I felt the Spirit urging me to do so, I have often not shared Your guidance and counsel when the perfect opportunity arises, I have lacked quite often in simply sharing my testimony that You have blessed me with. All of this has been due to my own lack of confidence in my own spiritual journey. I always feel like I am not that far along in my faith, so who am I to try and speak Your wisdom to others, especially those whom I feel should be more spiritually mature than I am? Help me in this, Father. Help me to be confident in all that You have taught me in my spiritual journey so far. When the time comes for me to speak up, please bless me with Your confidence in the moment but also Your words, so that I am not speaking from the flesh but instead being a vessel for Your glory to shine through.
EXPAND TO READ: GENERAL NOTE FOR MY QUIET TIMES
Comments