The Spirit Within

“Who knows what pertains to the man except his spirit that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. ” (1 Corinthians 2:11-12)

The Spirit of God within us is the only one who truly knows the depth of our heart and soul. We will never know the depth of another human being’s soul. Even those who are closest to us only reveal to us what they want us to know. When I judge others I claim to know what is in another person’s heart. I claim to know why the person is behaving in a certain way. And if I don’t approve of the behavior I am often critical of them. But instead of being judgmental, I should take a step back and trust that there is a reason that the person acted that way which I know nothing about. Rather than being critical, I could reach out to them, lending them a hand or be willing to listen to them. We all need to be heard and sometimes just sharing with another person what we our struggling with makes the burden a little easier. Paul speaks about us having “the mind of Christ.” If this is so, then my behavior should reflect that. Christ always looked on others with compassion and I must do the same. If I take the time to understand one’s behavior, I will be less judgmental.

We are given wisdom so that we “may understand the things freely given to us by God.”  But God doesn’t spoon feed this to us. We need to seek wisdom by spending time in prayer and listening to God speaking to us and we can only do this when we quiet our hearts. We need to delve into scripture and learn how the prophets, apostles and disciples lived their lives for God. The lives of the saints also give us guidance. We need to seek wisdom so that we can discern the will of God. Paul goes on to say, “the one who is spiritual can judge everything.” He is not talking about man’s judgment of things that is often harsh and unforgiving, but with the Spirit of God. When we do this, our eyes are opened and we can see things from God’s perspective which is always one of love. God always welcomes a humble and contrite heart and we must do the same. We need to see the good in all people because Christ resides in each of us. A friend told me the other day that we should reflect back on all the people that God placed in our life each day and see if we recognized Christ in each of these people or if we failed to do so. Not to see if they were Christ-like in their actions but if we were blind to recognizing that Christ dwells in them. He is there, sometimes we just have to look a little harder.