Confession #68 - I will Survive and Blog on!

"At first I was afraid I was petrified, thinking I could never live without you by my side.  I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong, but I grew strong, and I learned how to get along...."  These are words of wisdom from Gloria Gaynor's hit no. 1 song  "I will survive" in 1980.  They come to mind because of a recent issue I've had to wrestle with. An issue that halted my blogging for a while.  It's got me thinking quite a bit about wisdom and how in the absence of it we tend to make ourselves look utterly foolish.

The word wisdom is used 51 times in the book of Proverbs alone, and the phase "get wisdom" is in the Bible six times.  I'm pretty sure that's much more than a hint!  So just what is wisdom?  Often people mistake wisdom for prudence, knowledge, experience, understanding. It really is none of these things. Reading books and articles on subjects may give us a head knowledge of things, just as simply reading the Bible only gives us head knowledge of the word of God.  Real wisdom comes not only from a head knowledge of God and His book, but also by allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us.  The evidence of this wisdom is when the fruit of the spirit begins to show.  Galatians 5:22-23 tells us just what the fruit of the spirit is, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."  It goes on to note that, "Against such things there is no law." 

Allowing the Holy Spirit to manifest His fruits is a process of staying in daily prayer and study of His word, by practicing its principles and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us in every circumstance and also by taking the advice of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:5, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God {foolishness}, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  In order to have real wisdom it must be a skill practiced by taking our thoughts captive, filtering them through the obedience of Christ and then allowing them to manifest outward through the Holy Spirit to allow His fruit to show and to grow.

Impulsively expressing "our" thoughts and criticisms without the filtering of the Holy Spirit is the work of foolishness. And please be careful not to believe that by simply holding a title in life that automatically grants one wisdom.  PhD's earners, Nobel Peace Prize winners and high elected officials have proven themselves foolish at one time or another, even pastors and preachers.  Truthfully, if we are not submitting everything we do to the obedience of Christ and allowing the fruit of the spirit to be evident, before we respond to our circumstances, our friends and our adversaries, we run the risk of being the antithesis of wise; we risk looking like fools.   “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”  Matthew 7:24-27

Thankfully I will survive the foolish words of my adversaries AND my helpmates.  God has sought fit to that and given me the resolve to blog on.  This experience has taught me so much about myself and the nature of others.  It has also given me the ability to forgive them and love them anyway through the grace of God, which another example of the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Today and everyday, I choose to operate within the realm of God's wisdom by filtering my thoughts through the Holy Spirit and allowing them to manifest through love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  And in my moments of weakness, being the dirty christian woman that I am, I pray God to forgive my foolishness and set me right again.

Dear Heavenly Father, I pray today for my sisters-in-Christ, who may have been attacked by the foolishness of others.  I pray that you will give them the ability to survive and the wisdom to know how to respond like women of God and not foolish subjects on behalf of hurt and anger.  Allow the fruit of the spirit to show and produce a sweet taste to those who have used foolishness to hurt them.  Teach us all your wisdom Lord, not just a head knowledge of it but a heart knowledge too.  In Jesus name I pray.  AMEN.