Today was a bit rough. I once again started out my day working on my inventory in quiet time. It is getting a bit brutal. Today a lot of my time was spent trying to write down my critical spirit for someone who actually had hurt me. For years I have handled criticism better than love because that is what I was used to, so I was surprised this morning to find myself having to fight for victory over my day. I went to work with a critical mind. I came home from my first job with a critical mind. When I got home, I laid on my bed and cried out to God to please take my critical spirit away, I just couldn’t stand it anymore!
I think my day did get a bit better after that. I finished my last final for the semester today. It is absolutely amazing to think my first year of school is done. 1 down, 3 to go. I can’t believe how time flies! This year has both been incredibly long and short. It has been most pleasant. At least the end of it. But it all was because I love to grow and change. This year has been filled with growing and changing.
Today was the toughest day I have had in the last couple weeks. I finally took some time out to talk to God with no inventory allowed! That helps! I also am trying close to the heart of God and asking Him to let me know if I am going in the wrong direction with my life. Every now and again my journey gets crazy enough that I just ask Him to please let me know if I have imagined what I believe he has asked me to do. Reconfirm it. Give me peace. I want to trust Him completely.
Because of the whole step 4 “Who are you critical of and why?” question in my life, I thought a lot about criticism today. I am convinced if I look at people around me and see their brokenness and become critical, the greater brokenness is not in them but in me. Love does not respond to sin with criticism. It responds with compassion. Just like God did.
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” – John 8:1-11
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