Down a Narrow Path…Yielding!

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” Gal 5:16-17 (ESV)

So with the teenagers safely tucked away at America’s Keswick (serving on summer staff) my wife and I took a short drive to Bar Harbor, Maine. We did have a brief pit stop at Cape Cod and that lead me to discover a new food group…lobstah!! They were good with drawn butter. But I was getting the impression they thought I was messy because they insisted I wear a bib. Anyway it was onward to Maine where we discovered the narrow paths of Acadia National Park. For the record there is a rock just waiting to be pushed off a cliff. It’s called Bubble Rock and I think it won’t take much to get it over the edge.(say hello to Mr. Dyn-o-mite!!)

As I walked these narrow paths and people started to walk towards me I began to think about how important it is to yield to others. Because if you don’t someone could take a long tumble down a rocky mountain side into the waters of the North Atlantic and they will experience new levels of pain along the way. But then God prompted me to think about not just yielding to people but to the yielding of self to His spirit. To think that this yielding will happen as we try to walk in the Spirit took a little bit to ponder over but I believe I could put it like this.

Paul gives this fitting advice to the Galatians because he would have observed that to “walk in the Spirit” is a standard of faith when God’s Word is allowed to be a “lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path”. We stop walking without being guiding and submit ourselves to He who is the ultimate guide. We stop crashing and bumping into things of the world and the path is made clear in the way of holiness and righteousness. Because of this part of the yielding we can walk uprightly and realize that we need to depend on His grace and strength the whole of our walk and in the salt of our conversations.

Then we can begin to exercise within the graces of the Spirit of God. You see it will be the bumping and crashing of the world along our path that God allows to strengthen our faith in our saving grace knowledge of Jesus Christ. Be there any pruning needed along these paths of Acadia National Park man just does it, even if doesn’t bring on any fruit. But when He does the pruning along the paths He is guiding us on we get the fruits of humility, lowliness of mind and meekness. And when that occurs in our daily walk getting out of the way comes naturally and dare I say…joyfully?

Walking and yielding at the same time, hmm? Well I can tell that if you are on the streets of Bar Harbor, Maine there is a lot of the two going on. But if you are planning to walk in the Spirit be prepared to yield to His Spirit as well. There are a few of us that haven’t done that and we have taken that tumbling down a mountain side into a sea of despair experiencing new levels of pain. The best thing we can do while walking down the narrow path is to walk with a readiness to yield. It’s an obedient way, that may not be our way…but it is His way. Amen? – Chris Hughes is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy and a frequent Freedom Fighter blogger

Team YOU: Psalm 120-122; Proverbs 27; 1 Corinthians 9

Motivations: “We never move beyond our need for grace. Therefore let us trust God for great things in our little faith, and let us not be paralyzed by what is left to be done in our personal lives, and in our church, and in our vocations, and in global cause of missions.”—John Piper

Practice to Remember: Level 1:Philippians 3:13-14; Level 2: Philippians 3:17-21

Powered Up:  The purpose of prayer is to reveal the presence of God equally present all the time in every condition. Oswald Chambers