Talking Bollocks

The last couple weeks, although the normal struggles of life still exist and are out and about, the peculiarities of their annoyance have not been present. I realized last night that my overarching sense of peace and joy recently, even while the storms rage on about me, is an answer to a prayer. 

The prayer was this: that despite the ever-present things going on around me, I would be so exquisitely wrapped up in His love, they would naturally work out in my mind and heart without my constant attention and catering to them. When His outpouring love fills you, you consequentially outpour His love yourself into everything you do. Or in other words, the prayer was to focus on only what GOD will have me focus on and trust that He’ll work out the rest without my help.

After recently having multiple long conversations where the dialogue went through a series of unfruitful question-asking, answer-striving, and verbal processing, I became convicted that it was not glorifying to verbal process things when it is obvious that the spirit of wisdom is not present. How can we know the spirit of wisdom is not present in our conversations? 

  

"Talking Bollocks"

Well, as a simple answer (perhaps too simple), the conversation will lead into a whole lot of specifics about an issue, but will never quite reach a place of discussion about the core misconceptions of God - who He is and/or what He's doing in those situations right now. This misconception of Him is where the root of all the peculiar struggles lie all the while, sitting and hoping for us never to reach them. Or in other words: wisdom, given by the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2,  1 Cor 12:8) is not present in a conversation when specific issues become the focus and not the root of the problem. Specifics leave too much room for our own power and control when they are not entrusted to God.

Here’s an example Christ set regarding the woman caught in adultery in John 8:

When the woman was brought to Jesus by the Pharisees for His judgment, just being caught committing adultery, how did He handle it? Did Jesus ask, “well who was she caught having sex with?” And did He ask, “how long has this been going on?” Did Jesus even ask anything in particular about the situation? No. Because the peculiarities were only mere manifestations of the root problem; that she was living in sin - Jesus did say that. That’s what we’ve really got to get to, isn’t it - the root sin of the issue - our basic misconception of God and/or our rebellion if we do know?

"He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." 
- John 15:2

It may be strange to think of these unfruitful branches as being even our own compulsion to engage in dialogue without wisdom, but because the power of life and death are in our words (Proverbs 18:21), it is no small request I make of the Lord to prune this compulsion from my heart and to be able to discern when wisdom is upon me.

To hear what wisdom has to say in the bible, read her words in Proverbs 8. Happy talking. May the glory of God be upon all our lips.