I absolutely love the children's message at church. Today was another reminder of that. The pastor was using a teddy bear as an object lesson. He shared with the kids how we find comfort in our teddy bear's and how it is the same with Jesus. Then he closed up his message with the children repeating a prayer. One of the lines in the prayer went something like this, "And Lord, we want to be a teddy bear to the world. Help us to love them and care for them just like you have loved us."
Almost immediately after the pastor finished praying, one of the youngsters blurted out, "I DON'T WANNA BE A TEDDY BEAR! I WANNA BE ME!".
Priceless....but yet so true. It's very easy for us to agree in one breathe that we want to share Jesus love, to be salt and light in a bland world. Yet, we still get tangled with that old flesh of ours that wars for our hearts and minds. We desire to walk in the Spirit, but that old guy comes along and gets us all messed up....we say, "I just wanna be me!".
Jesus said it plainly in the garden when tempted, "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is so weak".
We are so weak....but Christ is so crazy strong! He will not leave us hanging. All we need is to admit our disposition, of how we daily want to be who we want to be....and how we need a fresh, renewed breathing of His Spirit released into us.
To be quite honest, I don't wanna be a teddy bear either. My flesh has worse things that it desires to be.....but the Spirit keeps drawing me further into yearning to be like Christ. Oh Lord, I desire for your divine power to increase in me....let me fade away.
