Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Character: The Real Thing

 
Does your dog have mealtime behavioral issues, such as taking a mouthful of food from his bowl retrieve to another spot and drop it on your carpet and then proceed to munch away? Believe it or not some Veterinary Professors have discovered why dogs do this,
it's called pack mentality.
 
"When dogs in the wild makes a kill, the outranked animals drag pieces of food away so they don't have to fight the leader or more dominant canine for it", Dr. Julie Albright says. She also adds,
 
"Fighting is obviously very risky, so most animals, especially subordinate ones, will go to great lengths to avoid an altercation."
 
Now, I know you are probably wondering how does this tie into anything spiritual that I can use and grow from?
 
Well since this above mentioned dog story is more about character than the dog just being weird, character can play an important role in our walk in Christ.
I always believed that consistency is an important character trait that plays a vital role in our daily life and how we mature and grow spiritually. My Saturday morning workout routine is a simple but long one: I run 5 miles, climb 4 flights of stairs, and run one more mile. I have been doing this for 11 months now and have consistently done it in 43-45 minutes. I always have tried to be a model of consistency in everything that I do. Consistency is a character trait to which I am so humbled to have.
 
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.
(Galations 5:22,23)
 
These are spiritual character traits that all Christians should carry and use with consistency. Another form of consistency we should carry daily is how we prep ourselves for our day. I know have blogged about this a million times, but it will always bear repeating lest any of us fall into a spiritual rut.
 
One consistency routine on how I approach each day: my drive to work consists of  praying or talking to God while listening to worship music. And when I declare outloud, "Your Kingdome come and Your will be done today, Lord", I am basicly saying,
 
"Lord, I am giving this day unto you, have Your way with it, my King!"
 
I believe when we approach each day with a model of consistency, we see God move mountains and do the impossible.
 
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.
 
The shadow is what we think of it,
 
the tree is the real thing.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for a very enlightening message. Recently I have started to ponder about what's in 'character' and 'to be Christ-like' and I just found your post. Not a coincidence in my view. N.

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks! that is usually how God works, in my most recent post(following this one)I make mention of just opening my Bible and "Bam" there's a scripture right in front of me that I needed to read.

    ReplyDelete