I found this interesting.....by Phillip Yancey During high school years I tried desperately to deconstruct and then reconstruct my personality. For starters, I hated being Southern. ...I wanted to disassociate myself from my region. Vowel by vowel I worked on my accent, succeeding so well that people ever since have reacted with surprise when they hear I grew up in the Deep South. I began a campaign to read great books in order to remove provincial blinders. I shunned any behavior that conformed to appropriate or proper Southern etiquette, and sought only the authenic. I worked to gain control of my emotions so that they were my servant, never my master. I even changed my handwriting, forcing myself to form each letter in a different way than I had before. By and large the makeover worked, giving me a personality that has fit comfortably in the decades since. I became less vulnerable and more open-minded and flexible---traits not cultivated in my upbringing but useful in my profession as a journalist. It was only years later that I realized the limits to a self-constructed personality. In most ways, important to God, I had failed miserably. I was selfish, joyless, loveless, and lacked compassion. With the exception of self-control, I lacked all nine of the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5. These qualities, I came to realize, cannot be constructed. They must be grown, under the direction of an inner power, the Spirit. I have since made it a regular practice to pray through the list in Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Do I show love, experience joy, feel peace, exhibit patience ? I am humbly aware that any progress in those qualities comes as a result of the Spirits work. I agree with J. Heinrich Arnold that Christian discipleship is not a question of our own doing; it is a matter of making room for God so that He can live in us.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 18:46:06 +0000
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