Natural instincts

I try everyday to fight my “natural instincts”.

The one where if I’m mad at you, i’ll just cut you off.

The one where if you’re rude to me, then i’m gonna be rude back.

The natural instincts i’ve known and grown to depend on as my coping mechanisms.

The day I decided to follow Jesus and began learning who He is , I learned that I am supposed to be more like Him. That was the day I learned I couldn’t do those very natural instincts anymore.

I had to forgive when hurt.

I had to be the bigger person even if it felt like they were walking all over me (don’t repay evil with evil).

Now here is something really interesting about this. I was writing this one day in my frustration and in my feelings trying to put it all down on paper, you know release some tension that was inside of me. Well as I was writing God filled my mind with a new thought….. I was trying to operate from an unhealed heart.

And that’s why it wasn’t natural for me to do it.

I was trying to do what a healed heart would naturally do.

So when it really comes down to it and things start getting heated. I get tired of trying to be and act how I know I should, and finally I crumble.

In those cracks , what’s underneath comes to the surface.

In that fiery heat I want to go back to what feels natural for me.

What the unhealed part of me knows best.

But if I was healed in that area, truly healed than there wouldn’t be anything to go back to.

So there I was faced with a problem. I was faced with my own self. You know sometimes it isn’t the devil doing anything, but it is us, we can be our own obstacle. We can be that very mountain we’ve been praying for to be moved, it takes a little self reflection and a lot of humbling to see that it can be our own fault.

God doesn’t place those walls in front of us to punish us.

It’s not to keep us from going forward, if we could just look past ourselves. We could see that He does it so we CAN move forward.

You know them by what?

By their fruits. Galatians 5:22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

So how much does God love and care for me that He wants to remove what isn’t of Him. How much more does He want for me to be more like Him. He shows me where i’m short and wants to not only take it from me but replace what was there with Him (good fruit).

What He takes away He replaces with something so much better.

Because when those walls show up there is no where to go but to face it.

We cant hide from our unhealed parts forever, eventually we have to mature.

Thank you Jesus.