Sinful Flies

This might seem a bit odd to you to read this, as it seems to me to write it, but I am compelled to do so and so I shall.  

This morning as I was spending some quiet time with God there was this fly buzzing around the lamp near my head.  Now normally a fly buzzing around my head will drive me absolutely crazy, and this experience was no different.  My gut reaction was to go get a fly swatter and splatter his guts  all over it, but I didn't.  It was like the Holy Spirit just said, "Wait a minute."  I thought, "Ok.  This is going to be a test for my patience or something like that."  I went back to what I was doing, and it was no big deal...until a couple of minutes later when I took notice of that buzzing sound again and wanted to do to it as I have previously talked about.  This time it was like the Holy Spirit said, "Go ahead and get the fly swatter;" so I did.  I jumped up out of my chair, ran upstairs, and grabbed a fly swatter, which happens to have the guts of another fly on it which I had previously and was possibly a cousin to this one I now wanted to kill.  I went back downstairs and what do you know, the fly was gone.  Humph.  

I immediately thought to myself, "That's a lot like life.  That fly is just like sin in my life.  It's there, it's small, and I want to kill it."  It seems like it's so often the "little" sins that I need to get rid of.  You know those ones that just kind of creep around, coming out of nowhere?  Those thoughts are good and true but I also thought of something else just after that, "I can't get rid of them, only the Holy Spirit working in me can."  Just like I didn't do anything to get rid of that fly, in fact it flew away while I was gone, I can't do anything to get rid of my sin.  I wanted to kill that fly and I want to kill my sin, but any death that comes to my flesh is only done by the working of the Holy Spirit within me.  He is the one that does the work of changing my heart to follow God's commands and gives me the strength to be obedient.  Yes, I fight against sin in my life, but the victory comes through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yeah, I know.  It's kind of a cheesy story, but this whole business with the fly really got me thinking and made me ever so grateful for the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, because as much as I want to be sin free I can't be on my own.  May you too find His strength to be yours today as He continues to get rid of the "flies" in your life.