Surviving or Advancing the Kingdom?

2/14/2012

The psychology books talk about how if you tell somebody to not think about the pink elephant, that’s the only thing they can think of from then on. Well, that is probably true in the natural man sense. The normal human can’t do what we’re talking about. It is actually a fruit of the Spirit. It’s God’s Spirit that allows us to have control of self, which also involves emotions and thoughts. The cycles can actually be changed in turn without becoming calloused to them or even disavowing their importance. “I’ve just moved on now. I have something else important, and I’ll devote myself to that.”

All the sudden you’ve got two more hours in the day to love people, to read your Bible, to ponder and consider, because there’s no energy leak anymore. When it’s time to go back to it, you’ve trusted God that the “time loss” won’t kill you, that God will bless the choices that you made and fill in the gaps in ways that exceed your ability to have done anything with that two hours anyway. So, God brings creativity and insight and quick-wittedness to solve a problem—to see through a problem, analyze, and evaluate in ways that we wouldn’t have been able to just with more time. With more time there are still limits to what we could have done anyway. So, trusting God that He can fill in the gaps and fill in the time we need to somehow honor our priorities.

If our priority really is to seek first the Kingdom, on what level did we actually do that today? What’s the evidence that we sought first the Kingdom? Because we didn’t do anything “bad” today? Does that mean we sought first the Kingdom? That’s not really a solution to that equation: “I can prove to you that I sought first the Kingdom today. I didn’t do anything bad.” That’s not the answer to that question! What did I do to pursue it? If I’m seeking something, I’m advancing something. You can’t seek something without advancing. So, what’s the evidence that I advanced some today? Well, I would submit that if you allow the energy leaks and don’t learn how to turn that switch, it won’t be every day—it won’t be many days—that you can say, “I advanced something today.”

“I held my own today.” That’s not seeking first the Kingdom. That’s surviving. Seeking is always an advancement. And to be able to say that every day, I think involves that fruit of the Spirit, control of self. Because there’s too many energy leaks otherwise! I even get distracted when I’m reading the scriptures. Or I get distracted when I ought to be looking somebody in the eye and loving them. I’ve got this little energy leak somewhere gnawing at the back of my brain. It’s not even a conscious thought, but I didn’t really turn the switch on it, so I’m running this subroutine back in the background, and it’s an energy leak. It immobilizes us. It numbs us to most of the important things. And it’s the difference between surviving and seeking first the Kingdom. It’s that fruit of the Spirit when you’re busy, when you have things to do: the ability to say no to a thought, and then it’s gone...to say no to a concern, and then it’s gone...to say no to an ambitious, creative idea that could help something. Well, there’s something in the heart that says, I need to do this to protect my job or to advance my job, or whatever. Say no! Trust and “control of self” put me in a whole different universe in a matter of just seconds, if I have learned this particular gift, this particular fruit.

I don’t know why it took me that many years to figure out that I didn’t have to be running six subroutines at all times and could actually “this one thing I do” at that moment in time—and not be ashamed of the other six things I need to do either. But I don’t need to do them all at once. And I sure don’t need to have other things gnawing away at the moment and my focus this precise second. Everything from relationships to whatever else are all, I think, very tied in. Normally you wouldn’t think the quality of a relationship is tied into self-control, “control of self,” but it is, because of those silly subroutines. If we allow them, they will divert attention and distract and disorient us. And we won’t be seeking first the Kingdom—we’ll be surviving one more day without getting into too much trouble. But there’ll be no advancement without that particular fruit of the Spirit.