How’s your spirit? Your spring of your life . . . how’s it flowing?
I mean the you within you.
How’s your attitude? Is it the attitude you want? Or do you long for something different?
Is your spirit what you want it to be?
Like it or not, we all have been formed largely by a world distracted from God. From little on up,
we’ve chosen various attitudes and behaviors to interact with our surroundings. Some good, others not.
If you know me, or you’ve been reading my blogs awhile, then you know I’ve lived most of my life withdrawn and hiding in my pockets. I felt trapped within myself. My spirit was formed tightly around my fears.
Do you feel like a victim of your circumstances?
The depths of your being, (your spirit, heart, and will,) are formed by your experiences and choices.
Read more about your spirit in my previous blog here.
Simply by being alive your spirit takes shape. In your early years maybe you experienced abuse, or
had an absent mother or father. Or perhaps you experienced a happy childhood. Your heart, will, and
spirit, have molded in a particular way as a result.
You have a spirit within you and it has been formed.
It has taken on a specific character. . . .
This is true for everyone.
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart
Spiritual formation is not something optional for a select spiritual few.
Perhaps you feel trapped in an endless downward spiral. The neighbors seem to have the happy family
you’ve always longed for, your coworkers don’t have the financial burdens you have, and even your
sister has turned her back on you.
Are you tired of existing instead of living?
Being honest with yourself, you admit you’re often imprisoned by your own perspectives, experiences, and choices.
You are weary of your life’s downward spin.
Dreams for a close relationship with your husband have vanished, those ideal jobs you worked hard to
secure never materialized, though you have poured your life into your children they are ungrateful at best, and overall you feel unloved and alone.
Remember what I said earlier? We all have been formed largely by a world distracted from God.
Which means, if we want to have the joy-life we need to be purposeful at finding ways to allow our
spirit to be formed by the Greatest Spirit. The One who dreamed of you even before the beginning
of time.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then
you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is –– his good, pleasing and perfect will. Rom 12:2 NIV
You’ve tried hard to change someone else haven’t you? Didn’t work. Right?
Maybe not, but you have all the hope in the world, by the grace of Jesus, to change yourself. When that begins to happen there will be a shift in relational dynamics, and that shift will cause change in those around you.
Synergy happens when you transform God-ward.
Instead of a negative spin, your life will take on a positive synergistic spin.
Allowing God to form your perspectives, decisions, and behavior is not natural.
It requires intention and involves first developing an awareness of His presence, then cultivating a listening ear, and ultimately being open and vulnerable (intimate) with Him.
Being intentional in allowing God to form your spirit is significant because your spirit is where all the springs of life flow.
Your spirit, heart, and will are in essence the same. I describe them in further detail here.
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Proverbs 4:23 NLT
Guard your spirit for it determines the course of your life.
Questions:
Do you honestly want to become more aware of God’s presence in your everyday life?
When specifically will you give God space in your life today?
What is one specific thing you will do today to direct your focus more fully toward God?
Thank-you for a much needed reminder that God is waiting to transform us to the image of his Son. I look forward to a delightful journey with all the Heart Working Women who are listening to Jesus say, “Follow me, take my yoke and learn of me.” Together we can find rest for our souls. ps I like the first cover best!
Thank you Melanie for sharing this adventurous journey.
Thank you for this simple, yet vital, reminder. As a woman, I find myself being drawn outward to cultivate the hearts of those around me. It is so easy to get so focused on the needs around me that I neglect the needs within me. I just said to a friend today that my only hope of being used by God is if I keep my personal relationship with Him as my focus.
It’s true Natalie. When that happens then together we are stronger.
Thanks for your encouraging post. We do tend to look at the world around us and where everyone else is at, and measure our own growth or progress according to them. Once we start viewing life from “under the sun”, then like the Philosopher in Ecclesiastes, we are likely to think that life is all meaningless. It is important to keep our eyes on Jesus and to look at life from the perspective of “above the sun”.
So true Robert. We need to keep looking up.
Indeed. It is only developing intimacy with God that allows us to truly thrive! Nothing else can fill our God-shaped void! Thanks for the reminder
Yes you are so right. Our intimacy with God is what allows us to truly thrive.
Are you tired of existing instead of living? Wow, we don’t realize sometimes how we are just floating aimlessly through life. Synergy happens when we transform God-ward! I love how you think and write … how you form your words. It speaks to me! TY for this beautiful post! ❤
Thanks Donna for stopping by. Blessings!