A lot of my posts here come from little epiphanies I have during my Secret Place times with God every morning. I recently ran across one such epiphany that arrested me because of its simple but powerful way of turning a lot of my "Christian thinking" upside down and away from the often negative and reactive approach some are prone to take towards spiritual growth. This is from a journal entry on June 3, 2012. See if it speaks to you in some way. I have edited it just a little but it's mostly straight as I wrote it.
"Papa, You want to be proactive in terms of how you change our behavior, don't you? Too often I find
myself analyzing something I did after the fact, as if that will really help when
the issue is always about the heart. Perhaps this is why you don’t spend a lot
of time correcting your children (I think it’s your last resort) but
rather encouraging us to give you access to our hearts so that you can heal and
transform them as needed. And if you do that proactively, it changes the behavior
on the front end rather than leaving us to attempt to modify it after the fact or on the
fly.
This is why you don’t want us to dwell on our failures, or focus so much on our behavior,
isn’t it? This is a very big thought, Papa! Romans 8:13, for example, is probably best read
as the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body before they happen, not after, yet I can't ever remember reading it in that way before today. This means that the fruit of the Spirit,
produced in us more and more as we live in surrendered intimacy to you, results in 'automatic' changes in behavior. The person who has been transformed by your kindness into a truly kind person will behave kindly, the person who has experienced your gentleness over and over will become gentle and be increasingly gentle with others, etc. Ah, Father. So much of what we 'Christians' try
to do is reactive, behavior-oriented, and after the fact. We are more likely to be asking for forgiveness (which is needed, of course) whereas you want to work in us in a way that is
proactive, in our hearts and 'before the fact' (preemptive)."
I could write more about this, I suppose, and I know I have touched on some of the things in earlier blogs, but I think I will let this one stand and suggest that you ask Holy Spirit to expand on it for you. How much of your life is "after the fact," reactive and/or focused on fixing things in you? How often do you find your focus shifting to your behavior in a way that pulls you away from Father's embracing grace and love? You get the picture, I think! I will stop meddling now and let the Holy Spirit do His work. :-)
Looking for His proactive work in us,
Tom, one of Abba's little children
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