"Outside and Inward"

"The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." (Psalms 94:11)
I wish I could say that I have it all together, but that would be a lie. If I could, I would do so many things over again; but that's not how life works. That said, God is such a Great Redeemer! If we have failed and messed up our lives, God is the one we need to undo the mess! Taking a look at what this word "vanity" means, it a little hard to put it into words; or anything else, for that matter, mostly because there is no way of holding onto it. If you really stop and think about it, it's a lot like how the Holy Spirit might work in our lives, He is not stored up within us, He is poured out and into us. That might explain why we get so weak after experiencing something great and powerful of God; we tend to count on that experience to carry us onward and through another challenge or trial; but that was for then and there, not for here and now. There is really only one way that we can be ready in season and out of season, and that is to be totally dependent upon God's Spirit to be at work in us. If we are going to try and store up some of that power for another day, we are going to be quite disappointed by the result of our ability to overcome or have success. "Not by power, nor by might, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts." (Zechariah 4:6) We can never try and bottle up the Spirit of God; we can never depend upon the strength we think that we might have within us, because the strength comes not from within, but from without; without, meaning that it is not by any power or strength that we might think that we have been given, but totally and completely dependent upon God. As soon as we think we have got it within us to do this or that, we are setting ourselves up for something that is going to hurt us; maybe not physically hurt, but it sure will teach us a lesson. Hopefully the lesson will be one that we receive and learn by; but base upon my experience, our stubbornness will bring us to another lesson, again and again. Ultimately, to love God and others the way that we should, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, continually! I can never come to the point where I have somehow now been enlightened or I am now somehow at a point where I can love God and others as I should; it just does not work that way. I do a lot of driving, and I wish I could fill my tank up and go further than my car says that I can go, but it usually ends up being less. As a matter of fact, once it get down to around 50 miles or so, it seems after 20 my car wants me to stop for gas. I am constantly thinking to myself that I should be able to go another 30, but I am also thinking that I might soon run out. To try and put it another way: It is only by God's Spirit that we are going to make it work; whether it is loving others and God, or it is preaching a message, the power and strength needed to do anything God wants to us to do, must come from God, it is not of our own...
"The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent." So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world's brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength." (1 Corinthians 1:18-25) NLT