I watched this weekend as two children played in the backyard behind our son’s house. A six-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl were playing together in the backyard, which was partially covered in snow. I saw the little boy go over to a corner of the fence and grab a handful of weeds that were almost as tall as him. He began kicking at them with his foot to break them off from the ground.
I continued to watch as he went around the yard looking for sticks and then took them back to a pile that he had started. He was building a “campfire.” I watched him as he laid the brush out and then scooped it up with his hands to form a mound.
At the same time, I watched the little girl with a bucket. She walked all around the yard, scooping up snow into her bucket. Then she walked over to the beginnings of what her friend imagined as a campfire and dumped all the snow on top of his wood.
Undaunted and seemingly unaffected, the boy continued on his quest for wood, and just as he did his work, she continued hers. He added wood and arranged it for his “fire,” then she came with the bucket of snow and poured it over the pile.
I immediately recognized this pattern!
Just as my spirit (the real me that is connected to God through Jesus) receives direction from God in preparation for the coming “fire” of Holy Spirit in my life, my soul (my mind and will and emotions) comes with a bucket of snow and dumps it onto the waiting pile.
Oh, it doesn’t look like snow; it looks like rationalizations: “That doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that will work there. Is this even allowed? That’s going to get a lot of unwanted attention. It’s probably not going to be a good fire anyway. I don’t want a campfire; I want a snowman.”
Not even understanding that I am allowing my soul to sabotage my spirit and the plan that God has for the fire, I can eventually become frustrated: “See, I knew there wasn’t really going to be a fire. If God meant for there to be a fire, it wouldn’t matter what I did, He would make it happen. I think it’s the enemy that keeps that fire from burning.”
My finger of blame and questioning goes to everyone but myself.
This is a representation of the difference in being spirit-led and being led by the soul. How do I know which to follow? In this case, Holy Spirit had already shown me a picture of a fire a week before, and He’d spoken to my heart about its details.
When I saw the pretend preparation, I recognized it as confirmation. As I unpacked its meaning, I understood the admonition against stifling the very thing God had promised to do with me.
Within hours I heard a pastor say, “Don’t kill what God gave you.”
“Well, alrighty, Lord, I’m getting it!”
Let’s lean in and follow God’s leading when He speaks to our spirit. Let’s not let our soul step up and dissuade us from what He is doing in our lives. Let’s not use our actions, nor our words, to stifle His work, but let’s join in with Him, agreeing for His best for us!
Galatians 5:16-18 says, “Let me emphasize this: As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the craving of your self-life.
“When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit you hinder Him from living free within you! And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you!
So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life of the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. But when you yield to the life of the Spirit, you will no longer be living under the law, but soaring above it!” (The Passion Translation)
Penny Renfroe is a care pastor at OneChurch in Whitesboro and her first published book, “Threads of the Father: Weaving His Words into our Daily Lives” is a best-seller.