Lego Lesson

Yesterday we watched an eight-year-old methodically begin building a huge Lego spaceship. He didn’t want the pieces sorted out, or everything to be set in order. He just glued his eyes to the directions and followed them step by step, finding each piece from the pile, as the directions instructed. We are amazed at his method and his patience.

Later in the day, someone insulted our generosity. My first reaction was a sense of being trapped. According to the Spirit, retaliation is not an option; according to the flesh, I felt like fighting back. According to the Spirit, letting someone sin against us is not a loving thing to allow; according to the flesh, I wanted to physically stomp on that person, without mercy.

Perplexing. How do I please God? How can I be loving yet just? How can I do what is best for that other person and honor the name of Christ? This time I have no clue.

So I prayed this morning and asked the Lord to show me. I was kind of hoping for a “thou shalt” verse that specifically told me, but He plunked me in Galatians 5 where Christian liberty is defined by a love that serves others and not ourselves.

Verses 16-18 say, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

No “thou shalt” verses in that. It just tells me that I need to sort out my motivations. I need to know what is driving me, and make sure it is not sinful flesh but the Holy Spirit. This is troubling because my mind senses a mixture of pieces in this puzzle. I know that no one can serve both God and their own selves, but some parts of my thinking seem to be from Him. So which ideas are the right ones to follow?

Perplexing. I know I can twist my reasoning and try to make it ‘spiritual.’ I can do something selfish and convince myself it is ‘for Jesus,’ but the long and short of this is that whatever I do, God wants it powered by the Holy Spirit, not by my own selfishness.

I still feel a desire to get even, to smuck that person with something to wake them up, even if it is a pile of uncommon kindness, a big dose that heaps coals of fire and heaps of guilt so they quit sinning. Isn’t this biblical? But this sin is also against us, and take makes me stressed. I want it to stop. My motives are mixed.

There, that is the issue. Knowing the difference between flesh and spirit is vital to knowing how to behave. I must know my own heart. What is sinful me? What is from the Spirit of God? Perplexing.

Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

When I don’t know, I need to study the Book. I can’t sort out the options and find the pieces without His help. I don’t know what to do next, or what to do in what order. Now these verses come alive. God basically tells me if I act on impulse without His instruction, that is fleshy, and about as foolish as trying to put together a 482 piece Lego toy blindfolded.

I can’t see the finished product in this relationship or what He is going to do in the life of that other person. All I can do is ask God what to do next and do it. He will show me from His Word. Today He also reminds me using the image of a patient eight-year-old who ignores what the finished model looks like to follow the hundred steps it takes to get there.