How much can we do? ...

Monday, Mar 24, 2014. How much power to do good things do we have in our life? Over the past days I had several chats with people who realized that they could not do that much …! Life is short, and it is vulnerable. And as humans we are quite weak.

What makes us weak …

There are different things which make us weak. There is illness in our life. A friend of ours had breast cancer years ago - and now it came back. A shocking and difficult news came some days ago. Everything we usually rely on is gone. When our health is gone, we feel like falling into a black whole!

Some young girl in our church had problems with mobbing in her school. She became ill from the social pressure which was put onto her. Kids can be quite sensitive at a particular age with respect to the pressures and requirements of both school life and their social environment.

Weakness can also be part of our job. A friend of mine has had trouble with his job environment now for quite a while. He is one of those who tries to do well and who is willing to give a lot. And he IS good. But that itself can lead to conflicts, since now everyone is happy with having skilled colleagues or skilled employees. When they want to take part in leadership, the nice treatment might end. And then the weakness of the skilled employees becomes visible. Not everyone has enough strength and ignorance for special types of power struggle.

What you can do! …

The New Testament draws our attention to different things. It leads our attention to the daily decisions we do. It leads our focus to the Holy Spirit and his influence in our life. Let us have a look into the letter to the Galatians, chapter 5:

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,4 drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

In the middle of the struggle of our life we are given an open door. It is the door to live with the spirit of the Lord. It is a door to follow him, to trust him, to rely on him. He will help, when his time has come. He will bring to a good end what he has started in us, when he called us to come to Jesus. We can do a lot: we can follow him. We can search him. We can live with him. We can find the fruits of the spirit in our life - even if we fail; in particular when we fail! I am looking forward to this every single day, again and again. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts