Hosanna Restoration Church

Have you ever noticed that when God is moving you in a direction it seems the path shrinks? It just seems like there is great big wonderful place waiting but there is only a small entrance. That is the very thing I was talking to God about today. It could be likened to a birth canal when the baby is being moved into new life. Or one could say that the tightening is squeezing some things to death in our lives that need to die. Or perhaps we could compare it to the picture of the camel going through the eye of the needle. However you prefer to describe it, the solution is the same. All things are possible with God. All things are not necessarily comfortable, but they are possible.

I find that part of the discomfort comes from the fact that when I begin to strive for that thing that God is revealing I have a greater awareness of my weakness and failures in that area. For instance, as we talked about patience it seemed that all I saw myself doing was being impatient. And of course, when we become irritated we compound the problem because we want to blame the one we feel irritated us. But love is patient all the time, and that is where the squeeze comes. What am I going to do? Oh yes, “Thanks be to God who always gives us the victory in Christ Jesus.”

So okay, I can be patient. All I have to do is desire to be patient all the time and rely on Jesus to help me and I can do it. Oh, but then love is not just patient; it is patient and kind! Oh God make me kind. I really want to be kind. Don’t you want to be kind? See, we think that if we are patient, that is being kind enough. But God says Love is patient and kind. Have you ever been patient but made unkind remarks as you did it? You didn’t honk your horn in traffic, but you thought some pretty unkind thoughts about someone. You went ahead and did what you preferred not to do, but grumbled as you went. Don’t you just hate it when you see yourself in an example?

So love is patient, and love is patient and kind. Love is also just plain kind. Kindness is something than can be expressed in so many ways. Kindness can be expressed in words we say and words we don’t say. It can be expressed by things we do and by things we don’t do. We can give a smile or a hug, or a plate of cookies. We can refuse to do things that would hurt someone else. This applies to family, business dealings and every part of our lives. We know that good deeds are no replacement for a relationship with Jesus Christ, but without the goods deeds is there really any relationship? If the people we have judged for trying to earn their way into God’s presence are kinder than us, it may just be that they are the ones with the better relationship with the Lord. After all, a tree is known by its’ fruit. One thing is for sure, the Holy Spirit is more than happy to lead us into the kind thing to do as well as to reveal to us when we are not.

So here we are. God is working on us to be patient, patient and kind, and just plain kind. Can you feel the squeeze? The picture I had in my mind as I thought on this was that as the opening appears to shrink, the Holy Spirit comes with fresh oil, which enables us to slip through into that next place. So let’s get under the spout where the glory comes out. There is more to come.