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WHISPERS TO AND FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT

My Will Is Not Enough

Lord, through your
mercy and grace
you can help me
do the deeds
you want me to do
and that I want to do
for you, but I do not.
Where is my will
and discipline
to get all that needs
to be done in your name?
I implore you to look
past my stubbornness
and weaknesses
and in doing so provide
me the strength
to be your obedient follower.
Left to myself Lord
I do not think I am
up to your call.
It is only through
the Actual Grace
that you grant me
through the Holy Spirit
that I can do for you.
I know my will is
not enough.

Dr. Don Reflection

This is something I deal with spiritually all the time.  It basically has to do with my pride and my inability to be in a constant state of surrender.  I have always been a doer. I looked at what needs to be done, and I do it. I GET IT DONE!

So when the Lord reveals what he wants me to do, I NATURALLY think that I have to do it. I have to have the will, the stamina, and the discipline to get it done. It is “I” that will get it done with God. It is me in you, God, right.  Wrong. IT IS GOD IN ME, who will get it done SPIRITUALLY, not, NATURALLY.

As my walk with Christ progressed, I noticed that I got a lot of things done that I did not intend to do that was not on my agenda. But I am learning in my life and love with Christ; it is not my agenda any more that works; it is his. So in this Whisper To The Holy Spirit, you hear me bemoaning, “Oh Lord, I don’t have the will, I don’t have the discipline that I need to serve you.”

Why is it that I always think it is me that has to get things done instead of God getting it done through me?  I know that is how it works, but I am always crying to the Lord for him to give me what I need to get done instead of relying on trusting him that he will get it done through me. All I need to do is surrender it to the Lord and let him get it done through me.

I simply have to surrender to him. “Lord, my mind is yours, my thoughts are yours, my body is yours, my will is yours, my discipline is yours because left to myself they are not there. It is only through you that I live, and it is only through you that I become a doer for your kingdom.” 

Mother Theresa of Calcutta put it so perfectly and in so few words when she said, “I am just a pencil in the hand of the Lord.”  I know that to be true, yet I still seek to get things done myself.  But more and more, I realize I am just a pencil in his hands, and it is not through my will that the things of the Lord will get done but through his will. 

Usually, after I cry out to him, “Oh, dear Lord, this is way more than I can get done” I realize I don’t have to get it done; it is he the Christ that will get it done through me using the power of the Holy Spirit. I simply have to surrender. Praise God; it is becoming easier to accept what is said in 1 John 4:4

Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world

 Dr. Don’s Comments

For the most part, we all think that we are the ones who get things done. We think things up; we plan them and then get them done.  And from the point of view of humanity, I guess that is what it looks like. But the more spiritual you get, the more you allow the Lord to walk and work in you, the more of what he wants to be done gets done.

You need to look at your accomplishments, and with a spiritual eye, ask yourself “who really wanted that done?” and “who really got it done?”  Did the Holy Spirit have a role in it, or was it all you”?   The longer your walk with Christ, the more you will notice that you did things you never planned to do, and you got things done but realize it was not you who got it done.

You will review what you got done in your mind and say, “How did that get done? I did not know I could do something like that. Where did I get that thought process or those skills?  I did not even know I had them.” When things like that happen, you know that the Holy Spirit is using you to get things done that he wants to be done.

These things that the Holy Spirit gets done with you have a different feel than those things you get done just because you want them done.  I am not saying those things you are doing for you are bad, no; they just feel different than those things that got done by you through the Holy Spirit

This is so hard to explain because it took me a while to look back at some of the things I have done and say, “How the heck did I do that?”  “Or why did I do that?”  And then you realize it was the Holy Spirit working through you.

As you continue your walk with Christ,  pray and hope that all you do is by, through, and with the Holy Spirit.  You pray that the very breath you take is of him, by him and with him.  I am not there yet, and it takes a while to get there, but once you know you are on this track under the direction of the Holy Spirit, you become far more aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life.