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The challenge is real ...

Friday, April 4, 2014. It is an interesting observation: you make or write some strong statement about faith in a public environment, and it is challenged in your personal life right away, the same day or days later. That can happen, - and if you are working to publically communicate the gospel, it is very likely to be one of your experiences.

Mode of Blessing? …

Yesterday I wrote about the basic feelings which guide our day - and looking into the bible we are drawn towards joy and thankfulness, since God is good. Then, very soon later, someone sent me a document where the good work of our unit was completely ignored and delays which are caused by ineffective structures in some parts of the institution were blamed onto my people. Since this has been done all the time now already for some years, my feelings went up strongly, I feel that it is not justified and it is unfair - and all the nice feelings from the prayer time were gone in an instant. Do you know this type of experience?

My experience seems to be something which could well serve as a template. We are called to love our enemy. We agree and want to do it. But then someone attacks us in a special way which hurts us, and in a fraction of a second all our intentions are lost, all our decisions about what we want to do are meaningless and our feelings move us strongly.

What are such experiences good for? They pull out of our illusions about what is in us. When I observe myself, I have to admit that I do not have the “nice and easy” reaction pattern when I am blamed for things I am not responsible for. I get upset when things are not working well. And to some extent I think that is not that bad, since otherwise nothing will ever change and those who like to blame others win over reason and fairness.

Changes to our reaction patterns …

I believe that God wants to work on and with our reaction patterns. Jesus shows very strong control of his reactions. He knows exactly how to react in different situations. Often, he is completely calm. He keeps quite when he is accused unjustly. But he can be very upset, for example when cleaning the temple area from merchants and business.

The spirit of the Lord is a strong influence who can keep us calm in special situations. He can help us to find good solutions to some challenges. We might fail in other situations - we are not perfect, we are just humans. We are kids of the Lord who are learning and keep learning his character for the rest of our life!

We should become aware that discipleship is “character building” indeed. Our character is given by genetic setup and social influences. But it is also continuously shaped by our daily experiences and by the decisions we do. If the Holy Spirit is in our life, he will change our character strongly. God's power is with us, it will not be futile. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts