“We are not the Holy Spirit so therefore inadequate to do His job.” This came to mind one day when I was trying to figure out what to do and the how to do of something. It was enormous, way above my head, but I contemplated handling it, taking it on MYSELF. As I worked, trying to finagle a process, my process, those words came to me: “We are not the Holy Spirit so therefore inadequate to do His job.” Grief and relief were my simultaneous responses, revealing the duality of my struggle. Wanting, really, to be God (though I never set out to be) and happy that I was not God. I was upset that I couldn’t handle my God-sized task and comforted that I couldn’t so I didn’t have to. This undoubtedly is a great issue in the life of recovering strong black women, all women (men, too), who have frequently counted on their strength above God’s. Tough work doesn’t easily scare us; we want to tackle the problem, wrestle it down, make it surrender to our will and leave us with arms raised in victory. But we are not always called to this, though this fight is our natural default. Natural default—our fault of nature, the sin nature preset to automatically tackle nature with our nature.
So we are told

• to operate according to the Spirit so we don’t operate according to our nature (Galatians 5:16);
• to declare our nature dead so the Spirit in us lives (Romans 6:11);
• to not snuff out the Holy Spirit in us in preference to our nature (1 Thessalonians 5:19);
• to remember that when our nature is weak, God is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9); and
• to know that our fight is spiritual, not physical (2 Corinthians 10:3-5),

so that God can shine boldly through us. The challenge now is to constantly battle my nature, tackle and wrestle it down, keep it there so I can declare victory in the Spirit. I thank God that though my struggle is real, I have supernatural words that can do a supernatural work in me to accomplish what God would have manifest through me. Much more could be said….until another time…

My One Thousand Gifts List

#471-480
Flynn letting me wear his hat because I didn’t have one
Compliments on my new Facebook picture
Flynn loading the dishwasher
The realization that I don’t first greet God in the morning
God waking me up in spite of my sins
Tabitha watching the children in the morning AND evening
Attending Joshua’s Black History Month program
A play date with Nate and Jackson and talking to Kim
Mrs. Fisher waiting with Joshua until I arrived to pick him up
A beautiful birthday card from Nichole