Tag: angry

Are You In The Flesh Or In The Spirit?

On By josephbarlowIn Encouragement, Journal, Ministry, TeachingLeave a comment

JUNE 9, 2020

Hey Friends,
Do you want to know whether you are in the flesh or in the Spirit?
Do you want to know if you are pleasing God or at war with Him?
You CAN know!

Years ago I came home from work and Nancy said, “You need to go into (one of our daughter)’s bedroom. She’s throwing a fit.” Before I walked in, I said, “Lord I don’t have anything. But I’m trusting you.” So, I walked in and said, “How ya doin’?”
She said “Terrible.”
Everything was wrong. To her this was a major crisis. It was some great injustice and her temper was totally justifiable in her eyes.
So I asked her a question:
“On a scale from one to ten, how are you doing in walking in love right now?”
She said zero.
I said, “Okay, how about Joy? One to ten, how are you doing?”
“Zero.”
“How about Peace?”
“Zero.”

I want through all nine fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22,23 and she rated herself a zero on every one of them.
I said, “Did you realize that, if you have a zero for each of those, then you’re walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit?”

I don’t remember what she said next, but I do remember the complete change in her attitude. The storm was passed by. She was no longer in emotional turmoil.

Through her finding out she was in the flesh, she was able to locate where she was emotionally and spiritually, where she wanted to be, and that it was her will that would get her there. She chose to walk in the Spirit and instantly received the reward of choosing to walk that way. She had peace, joy, love and all the rest.

So, friends, how are YOU doing?
Are you walking in the Spirit or the flesh?
On a scale of 1 to 10 rate yourself
How are you doing when it comes to walking in:

Love?
Joy?
Peace?
Patience?
Kindness?
Goodness?
Faithfulness?
Gentleness?
Self-control?

Romans 8:5-9 “For they that are according to the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh: but they that are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Now if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.”

You get to choose.
Love ya

Who Defines You

On By josephbarlowIn Family, JournalLeave a comment

When I was in high school, my younger brother and I were in the same math class. He was smarter than me in that topic and more motivated. I didn’t have a problem with being in the same class with my younger brother. It never bothered me. I had my own strengths and was happy that he had his. One of my strengths was guitar playing.

In our Catholic high school we had all school masses (basically a worship service) on some regular basis. As a guitar player, I joined the team to lead the singing. Sometimes I would do a special song right after communion for the whole school. On one particular day, I sang a somewhat popular song and the student body responded very favorably; they loved it. On my way to math class right after the mass I was congratulated and complimented frequently by my peers. It was a great feeling being appreciated.

When I sat down in class, my brother was sitting right behind me, then it happened: a pretty girl in the class came up to us, turned to my brother and asked “What’s it like to have a brother who’s wonderful?”  I was very angered by her question. Although I didn’t show it, I was livid. Didn’t she understand what she was doing? Didn’t she understand the place she was putting my brother into? I wasn’t concerned for me. I was concerned for him. She was placing him into what I’ll refer to as negative space. She was highlighting the space I was in and making it clear that he dwelt in the opposite space of me – the negative space.

I never discussed with my brother how this affected him. I’ve never brought it up until this writing. I hope he didn’t let this become a defining moment for him. That would be sad to let someone else’s limited perspective define you. Choosing the negative space as your identity isn’t about you. It’s about the other person. If you do this, you and the world will never find out who you are.

If you live in the shadow of someone, or think you do, don’t let yourself be defined by what you are not. Don’t take the negative space and say “that must be who I am.” No! You are a unique and awesome individual not to be defined by someone else, but by who God made you to be. Discover your own characteristics.

If you define yourself by negative space, then you take the definition of that other person and choose the opposite and say “that must be who I am.” So if I play guitar, my brother then would have to reject playing guitar, whether or not he had an innate talent or skill. If I chose Christ he then would have to reject Christ to maintain his identity. If I am straight he must choose to be gay to maintain his identity.

Can you see how faulty and tragic this can be? I believe this happens all over the world and throughout the human race over and over. We must give people the freedom to be who they are, and the affirmation of that as valuable.

Short People

On By josephbarlowIn TeachingLeave a comment

Do you remember the Randy Newman song called “Short People”? The words say, “Short people got no reason to live.” This morning, I woke up with that song in my mind, but for a reason you might not expect.

You see, I was short with my wife last night. Now if you’re not from America you may not understand what I mean. When I say I was short with her that means that I was short-tempered. It means that I was short of the fruit of the spirit. It means that my responses toward her were not full of grace. I was less than kind, maybe even mean.

My Wife

Now I love my wife. She is an amazing blessing in my life. She’s beautiful, thoughtful, helpful, fun to be around, she works hard, she’s always looking out for others. She’s willing to sacrifice her own needs and wants for me, the kids and others. The more I write this paragraph the more I realize that if I really want to do my wife justice, this is going to have to be a really, really, really long paragraph because my words can’t match up to the level of amazing that she is. So, just take my word for it, she’s amazing.

Focus

“So if she’s all that, why would you get short with her? You must be some kind of jerk!” Well I can tell you why. I’m not really a jerk. But even the nicest person can act wrong if they change their focus from others to self.

You see, each of us has an internal focus, a center, a place where we bring all of our energies to serve whatever is in the center of that focus. When we are ministering to others, truly from the heart, then those other people are our focus. We see the need they have. We have a compassion in us. We focus that compassion on them. We begin to bring all of our energies together to serve them. It is greatly satisfying to serve someone and see their life improve or change for the better.

What really can top that off for us is when they are thankful, really thankful for what you’ve done. It just makes it so satisfying that they recognize your selflessness and they tell you how thankful they are. But what can really mess things up is when you are being others focused and helping someone and they are not thankful. They are just self focused. Especially when they expect you to serve them. Then your compassion can disappear in a heartbeat. Suddenly instead of being happy to serve them because you are making a difference in their life, you are a slave to their will. Nobody wants to be a slave to anyone.

Opportunity

Immediately when someone else acts like that you have the opportunity to change your focus from others to self. You have the opportunity to put up your defenses; to protect who you are and your pure-hearted ways. You also have the opportunity to continue to be loving, selfless, kind, helpful and remain others focused. But here’s the problem, once you change your focus to self, you become short with people. You become focused on your needs and yourself and you begin to see yourself as needy and you want others to begin to serve your need. All you see is your own lack.

When you are others focused, you see how your abundance can meet their need.

When you are self focused, you see that their abundance should meet your need.

Life

For me the word life is an amazing word. It has a connotation of abundance, growth, overflow, more than enough. For me to be truly living, I must be overflowing with blessings so that those around me are glad they’re with me. The abundance on my life overflows to them. For me to live means to live from that place of overflow. If you will accept that type of definition for living then living life is wonderful. It is rich, fun and rewarding. So when I bring up that song “Short people got no reason to live.” You can see that short people are people who are short tempered; people who are self-focused; people who have nothing to give; people who only want others to give to them. As the song says, “I don’t want no short people ‘round here.”

Really what we could do is help others to get set free from being self-focused.

Rescue

Do you remember George Bailey? He’s not a real person, he was a character in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” He was about to commit suicide because he had gotten so self focused and distraught that he hated his life. The angel rescued him by jumping in the water and acting like he was drowning. He shocked him out of self-focus and despair by presenting a tragic need. Who George really was, selfless, was set free. The chains of self focus were broken and George sprang to selfless action and in doing so was set free from the desire to commit suicide.

Compliment

Now maybe that tactic won’t work for everyone, but something that can help people see their own abundance instead of their lack is a compliment. Tell them what they do have. Compliment them on something, anything. Once you help set their eyes on their own abundance then they can see how they can be a blessing to others. This can change them. This can make them taller in the spirit, if you will. This can help them to not be short people.

Favor

Another idea you may use is one I picked up from the advice columnist Ann Landers. Some of you may remember her from years ago. Someone had written her inquiring what could be done when someone’s heart is set against you or their heart is closed to you. Let me share what I mean by saying their heart is closed. As I was saying earlier about focus being on self or others; when someone’s heart is closed to you they refuse to allow you to be the center of any of their efforts or energy. They are closed to you.

Ann Landers reply, I feel, was significant. She said, “ask them to do a favor for you.” Now that is a genius answer. Because if you think of this in terms of someone needing to be set free from self-focus, asking them to do a favor; being bold enough to ask; is a tactic that could really work. If they actually do the favor then they have opened their heart to you. The focus which was not allowed on you, now is. That person is no longer short with you. The flood gates are on their way to being opened.

But most importantly they are being set free from the ravages of self focus.

Short people have no reason to really live life.

You give ‘em one.

Vengeance Is So Heavy

On By josephbarlowIn Encouragement, MinistryLeave a comment

OVER A WEEK AGO I WAS TURNING LEFT IN FRONT OF THE GLEN ELLYN LIBRARY TO HEAD NORTH OVER THE TRACKS. I WAS WAITING WHILE THREE CARS WERE HEADING SOUTH TOWARD ME THEN TURNING RIGHT. THE LAST CAR LOOKED LIKE HE HAD HIS BLINKER ON SO I PULLED OUT  TO TURN LEFT. AFTER I PULLED OUT HE SLOWED  BECAUSE HE APPARENTLY WAS NOT PLANNING ON TURNING AND I WAS NOW IN HIS WAY. HE YELLED OUT THE WINDOW AT ME SOME UNREPEATABLE CURSE WORDS.  WELL I’M NOT AROUND PEOPLE MUCH WHO TALK LIKE THAT SO THAT STUFF HURTS MY EARS; ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S DIRECTED AT ME. I THEN STARTED TO FEEL OFFENDED AND THE CHEMICAL REACTIONS IN MY BODY STARTED TO RISE UP WITH HOW TO HANDLE THIS. ALL KINDS OF IMAGINATIONS FLOODED MY HEAD. THEN I REMEMBERED THE SCRIPTURE VERSE THAT SAID, “BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU AND PRAY FOR THOSE WHO SPITEFULLY USE YOU.” SO, I STARTED PRAYING FOR THIS GUY, TO BLESS HIM. I PRAYED THAT HE WOULD GET A RAISE IN HIS JOB AND MAYBE EVEN A PROMOTION AND THAT GOD WOULD BLESS HIS MARRIAGE AND FINANCES AND ALL HIS RELATIONSHIPS. THAT THE GOODNESS OF GOD WOULD OVERTAKE HIM. IT WAS SUCH A RELIEF TO TAKE THIS POSITION, BECAUSE BEFORE I THOUGHT OF THIS SCRIPTURE, SOME OF MY IMAGINATIONS TOWARD HIM WOULD NOT NECESSARILY BE CLASSIFIED AS CHRISTIAN. LATER I REMEMBERED THE SCRIPTURE THAT SAYS, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” WHEN I THOUGHT ABOUT THAT I REALIZED THE HEAVINESS OF THE BURDEN OF WANTING TO PAY THAT GUY BACK FOR YELLING CURSES AT ME. WHEN I COMPARE THAT TO THE LIGHT FEELING THAT I HAD WHEN I WAS PRAYING FOR BLESSINGS ON HIS LIFE THERE WAS A STARK CONTRAST. NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY GOD SAYS THAT VENGEANCE IS HIS. IT IS TOO HEAVY FOR US AS HUMANS TO CARRY IT. I LOVE GOD. HIS WISDOM REALLY MAKES THINGS EASIER.