Spirit in a Bottle

Several times over the past couple of days, my creative writing teacher has told me she loves my “spirit.” This woman is one of the most loving, caring, and crazy teachers I have ever had. Frankly, I wish I could have a little bit of her spirit, too. For her to tell me something like that meant a lot. In class she actually told me she wished she could bottle it up and hand it out to everyone she knows.

            I found it interesting that she use the word “spirit”, because people don’t often use that word to describe someone else’s personality.  Usually someone will use outgoing, or friendly, or something along the lines of that. The word spirit isn’t used as an adjective in most people’s vocabularies. It was interesting to me because of the simple fact that I am who I am because of the Spirit of God.

            I never came right out and told my teacher I am a follower of Christ. I hope that she and everyone else I come into contact with can identify me as a follower of Christ simply by the way I live. It’s just not always that easy though.  Sometimes we have tough questions that need answering, or our stubborn personalities get the best of us. Being surrendered to the Spirit can help all of us in every area of our lives.

            Something I’ve been learning over the past few days is the meaning of humility, grace, and mercy. Grace is receiving something we don’t deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve, but instead getting what we don’t deserve. (For example, we all deserve hell, but because of God’s mercy we can be saved from it). I’ve come to a better understanding of what humility is because of grace and mercy. Grace and mercy basically say we don’t deserve anything, but we get it anyways. We aren’t humble about things when we think we deserve it, but the truth is, we don’t deserve anything. We get it all through grace.

            I struggle with that. I think I deserve respect, I think I deserve someone or something, but God says otherwise. God says, “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be breathing this breath. Everything you do is a gift. Don’t take advantage of it.”

            A blog I read recently was about leaking love. The author talked about an airplane he used to ride in, and every time he was done flying he would come out covered head to toe in oil. People knew he was flying, no questions asked. He talked about love being the same kind of thing. We should be so filled with love that it leaks out onto everyone around us.

            I think “bottling up” our spirits is very much the same. When we live a life lead by the Spirit of God, we reach out and touch everyone we come across with it. It comes wrapped up in a cute little bottle. Kind of like a wedding favor, but better, because it could change someone’s life.

            Bottom line, when we live life controlled by the Spirit, we understand people. We understand things we are struggling with understanding, like how can God send good people to hell, or what humility really is, or if it’s really okay to be a Christian and a Democrat all at the same time. God reveals it to us through little life experiences.        

            Wrap up His Spirit with you wherever you go. Hand it out to everyone you come into contact with. From there, let God do the work. Speak in a way that is honoring to the Lord, live in a way that is honoring to Him. People will see a difference and want a little bit of it. Make sure it’s available for them to have it.

Speak and be.