True Grit

I've been resisting the urge to blog for quite some time now.

For awhile it was because I didn't have the time to blog.  Too much to do and accomplish in comparison to the trivial typing away at a computer for something no one will read.

Then it was because I didn't really have anything of import to say.  To invest time and energy into something, well, one hopes it's for an actual purpose and not just the personal satisfaction of reading one's own words on cyberspace.

But now I have something to say.

God has been giving me so many opportunities lately to "practice" what He has taught me over the course of our relationship, that I feel the need to "birth" it all into some cohesive, recognizable form.  There's been a lot of pain, a lot of grief, and a lot of anxiety along the way, so I feel that by giving words to it, I might be able to lay my ashes here, sit back, and watch God make the unlikely soil fruitful--something of beauty.

I wanted to name my blog "True Grit."  But apparently someone else had the same ingenious plan, so I had to resort to my first post bearing this title.  I do feel, however, that this is what God is working into my life as of late: grit.  I've been a wimpy, whining Christian for a long time now, waddling my way through life's issues and crying out at the least bit of suffering.  No spiritual muscle, no divine endurance, no sacred temperance.

Just weakness.  And failure.  Oh-so-cyclical-failure.  Again and again.

And I'm simply exhausted.  Where is the endurance of Paul? the perseverance of James? the patience of Job?  I try very hard to manufacture these qualities through my ever-ready supply of willpower and self-imposed determination.  But that supply is depleted.  My cup is certainly not "running over," David.

A year ago I ran across the passage that addresses this very thing.  I couldn't believe Paul actually talked about true grit--but he does!  The church at Ephesus must have had a wimpy, flesh-driven problem like me, because he prayed:

"that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being" (Ephesians 3:16, ESV).

I particularly like the Amplified translation:

May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].

"Strengthened and reinforced."  That's what I need.  I need the power to do what I need to do, as well as the maintenance of that power long-term.  That's true grit.

We have "the rich treasury of His glory" within us through the Holy Spirit.  And each time we act on this treasury by "walking in the Spirit," we strengthen the "inner man" so that it can withstand the world and the flesh.  When God's Spirit is strong within us, we will no longer give in to the flesh without a fight; we will no longer run from suffering and pain with our tails between our legs; we will no longer whine and complain when God chooses to sear truth into our lives with fire; and we will no longer feed the illusion that we are slaves to our impulses or that we can control anything in this life or the next.

The Holy Spirit will become strong within us--and when that happens, the flesh MUST become weak.

I don't know about you, but that thought excites me.

And so I'm going to blog about my experiences, with utter transparency and honesty, in obtaining the true grit of the Spirit at work within me.  I do this not to glorify myself, but to present my weaknesses as fodder for His Flame to consume and send out as an aroma of something greater--the Spirit within me.  The same Spirit that lives in each of us who have wholeheartedly received Him as Savior and Lord.

It's time to put the flesh down, that lifeless form that Christ crucified, and quit enacting and obeying its impulses, and take up the Spirit, and the fruit He so naturally bears within us, when we are yielded to Him...

Love...

Joy...

Peace...

Patience...

Kindness...

Goodness...

Faithfulness...

Gentleness...

Self-Control.