What Are You, Crazy?

 

 

      

Gal 3:3

 

Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

NKJV

 

Can we be honest, and just "call a spade a spade?"  We like to do things on our own.  There I said it!  We like to do things we think up, in the way that we want to do them.  We do not like to be told what to do. We prefer for it to be our own idea.  And certainly, we like it to be our timing.  We do not enjoy relinquishing the driver's seat of our lives to anyone.  Not even to God.  If we are honest.

 

Most of us know enough about the Bible that we do not like to admit these truths about ourselves.  But the "proof is in the pudding."  How often do we try it our own way before we ever ask God's help?  I mean, really.  If  we can do it on our own, it never even crosses our mind to ask Him. It is almost like we feel we are bothering God with the small stuff, that He only specializes in things we cannot handle ourselves.

 

I like the way Paul puts it in this verse, "Are you so foolish?"  (Or as my kids say, "What are you, cray, cray?")  Yep, I am.  I have got a good case of independence  that does not really lend itself to living like a servant of God.  My mother likes to tell, that when I was a baby, I did not have a first word, rather I had a first phrase, "Do it myself."  It is like a broken record to this day. I enjoy playing the game Candy Crush. Recently they have added updates that occasionally cause you to receive random advancements.  Sometimes, as I am trying to earn my way through a quest, it will show up with a message something like this, "The tooth fairy is feeling generous. You have been  passed to the next level."  Then, bam!  I am  locked out of my quest and put into the next level.  Awesome, right?!  Not to Ms. Independence. I do not want to be bumped up, I want to earn my way to the next level.  By myself.

 

Now that you are smiling at my stupidity, what about you?  What areas are you bullheaded and self-reliant in?  These are places that are not as cute and funny to God, as they are to us.

 

He alone is our atoning sacrifice.  He alone is Savior.  He alone is Supreme.  Now that we have received Him, by faith, for salvation, why are we now still trying to earn things for ourselves?  Being a strong man (or woman) in God has nothing to do with human effort, and everything to do with His limitless power.  We are strongest, when acknowledging our weakness.  We are most like Him, when we let Him work through us.  Not when we try to make it on our own.  He saved us, because we could not save ourselves.  He released us from a prison that we did not have a key to.  Now that we have become His child, why are we  trying to break free of Him?

 

From the first time a baby crawls away from us, they continue to exert their independence and willfulness until they are totally independent.  It is a part of the natural growth process and it is good.  In the natural.  In the Spirit, however, we should never be crawling away from our Heavenly Father.  We must lean on Him, and gain our help and strength from Him.

 

What do you need today?  Healing?  Encouragement?  Financial deliverance?  A restored relationship?  Why are you trying to make it happen on your own?  Did you forget that He is God?  Ask Him into your situation.  He will fix it for you.

 

Dear Lord, I need you.  I cannot do it on my own.  I am powerless over the things that trouble me.  They are greater than I am, I am defenseless to defeat my enemy...without You.  I invite You into my situations.  Help me to walk in faith for You to be my deliverer, just as I believe You to be my Savior.  In Jesus' Name.  Amen.