July 20

Happy Friday. Are you ready for a great weekend? A time of restoration and corporate worship with fellow believers? I know I always start to get excited when the weekend approaches because I know Sunday is almost here. 


My sister and I spent a couple of hours with mom today. She complained quite a bit about her back hurting but there was no sign of bruising or injury where she was pointing. The charge nurse tried to give her some Tylenol —she wouldn’t swallow it. So she crushed it and stirred it into chocolate pudding. Mom would only take about 1/2 of that and then, as soon as she could she went straight to the trashcan to spit out her pudding (pill and all).  


We decided though, that sitting in a wheelchair all day tends to make one weaker: not moving (animated) nor motivated and the body is certainly at odds with what it was meant to do. 


“My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?”

‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5:16-18‬ ‭MSG‬‬


So as it is physically if we choose to sit and only be led by how we feel, we grow weak, it is so spiritually. We must choose to be led by the Spirit to escape the highs and lows. As I looked at mom yesterday (and she doesn’t know what she’s doing) it was the picture of the body deteriorating but our spirits can shrivel in the exact same way if we ignore and don’t continually feed and grow spiritually. 


Dear Jesus we pray today for animation and motivation of our spirits to live in the Spirit hour by hour and day by day. In you alone will we find comfort and in you alone will we find peace. We want to have a free spirit, one that escapes the compulsions of selfishness because we know we are not truly free if we are self-centered. You are the great King of the Universe, Jehovah God Almighty and you care for the details of our lives. How great you are! Amen and amen. 


Love you dear one,

Pam

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