Filters

Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?" Acts 2:7-8

This past weekend was the Ladies Retreat and I have been thinking about something every since. Before the retreat even began the retreat committee had been praying for the ladies who would be coming. One of my friends prayed something that fits what I'm thinking about now. She prayed, praising God for the way He works and the way he allows one woman to teach the crowd and 89 women hear the message in a different way. One message, 89 interpretations. Some were encouraged, some were convicted, some were confused, some were mad, some were apathetic, others were not moved at all. I have been thinking about how we all live with our own filters. And what I am convicted of is how totally not-from-God are my filters. The speaker shared a new thought I hadn't ever heard before - how we have to understand what kind of flesh we have in order to bring it into submission. Since our theme was "Jesus Take the Wheel, The Process of Changing Drivers" she described the flesh in terms of cars. The one I identified with was Annie the clunker. In her illustrations Annie was the most likely to discount any good there might be in herself, most likely to believe she didn't have any real friends, or that people wouldn't really like her if they knew her. When someone tells me something they appreciate about me I never take what they say as truth. I realized this weekend how that dishonors the one who made me.

So now I have to figure out how to trade up from the clunker. Not easy to do when you've driven this particular model for so many years.