WHAT COMES NATURALLY

A few years ago I was in Morning Prayer and I heard the Holy Spirit say, ‘Why don’t you stop using your gifts and use Mine.’ This was rather alarming to me because I thought I had been very careful not to confuse who I was with what the Lord was trying to make me into. Even so… it appears that our strong natural gifts can dominate what the Spirit wants to give us. Not that our natural gifts can’t become sanctified and used for the sake of the Kingdom… but then it is easy to miss the stream of new gifts that the Lord wants used instead of ‘what comes naturally’ to us.

Learning to accept ‘new gifts from the Holy Spirit as they are needed for circumstances we encounter daily is a learned experience. Stopping long enough to even ask the Lord for gifts is a first step in recognizing that ‘what comes naturally’ is not always what comes first to the intentions of God. Besides… using his gifts is so much easier than functioning out of our own abilities and ourselves.

“And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” Jesus