1. I've come to realise that if we're not careful, the gifts that God gives us can easily become the cause of our downfall.
2. I admire people who can confidently declare that they are able to walk with 100% sensitivity to the Holy Spirit all the time - I hope I'll get there someday. Most days, my flesh speaks louder than my spirit.
3. One of the temptations of thinking that you have knowledge and the spirit of discernment is that it is easy to become impatient with people who are not exactly seeing the same picture as you are. And you'd like to think that yours is the completely right one - but it never is as straightforward as you think it is.
4. Sometimes being overly critical completely disqualifies you from being heard at all.
5. In the midst of juggling my questions and the temptation to be critical, which I've been trying to work on for years now, I distinctly felt God reveal to me that the gift of discernment is a privilege - but we are accountable and will be judged for how we choose to use the information that God reveals to us. We will be judged if we use it to tear the Church down - which is God's treasured possession - instead of build it up. The purpose of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and all revelation and discernment, is to build the church up that it may grow into full maturity into the likeness of Christ, and not for any other purpose.
6. It is so easy to be critical of other people when you're on the outside looking in. But being a leader forces you into the heart of other people's mess and you realise that an instant fix-up might be completely destructive to the people around you.
And also, that most people around you are more interested in whether YOU can fix other people's problems instantly than in whether you're loving them with all that you have. And people THRIVE on pointing out what you're not doing right or what you've failed to do. I wonder why we love correcting other people so much? People are not PROJECTS.
7. Some things are more important than being right.
8. I am gradually becoming less impressed by people who know a lot and who think they know the right answers to everything because I am starting to see that more often than not, their walk never matches up to their talk. It's like a resounding gong.
9. Am also learning to not stop respecting people on the basis of the incongruency between their endless boastings and the emptiness of their actions. It is one of the hardest things to do, and makes me question whether I myself am merely assuming a form of godliness but denying its power.
10. One of the most comforting things that Jesus ever said was that when He comes back again, there will be no more questions. I like that. I am tired of questions.
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