Bacteria.

By: Monique Smith

Interesting title huh? Let’s dig in. Our immune system keeps us healthy. It is like an army of defense designed to protect our insides. Without our immune system fighting off bacteria, those germs would contaminate our bodies and kill us. Whenever we get sick, our immune system is going to war because those germs are trying to invade our body, and our immune system doesn’t like that. There’s internal conflict. On Sunday at New Covenant Church of the Triangle, (shout out to my #NCCC fam! Love yall!), Elder Crawford preached a DYNAMIC message entitled, “The conflict of being chosen”. This message was a BEAST. In short, she talked about how situations occur, problems develop in your life, and people “hate” on you, for no other reason than that of you being called by God for a purpose in life. Her text came from 1 Samuel 18, check it out in your free time. : ) Her message was really right on time, and I loved that she pointed out all of the external conflict that goes on after you are called, but later while talking to God, I started thinking about the internal conflict that goes on after you are chosen. Now that conflict, that’s deep. At the start of this devotional, I used an example about bacteria, that really has nothing to do with this devotional, but I thought it was eye catching, so I went with it. LOL. However, the concept of internal conflict fits perfectly. I don’t know about you all, but being called by God and knowing there is ministry for you to do, is a HUGE task. A task that I KNOW I am not, or ever will be, in my strength, able to accomplish. And because of this, the internal conflict that I have is dealing with fear, doubt, lack of commitment, frustration, sin, selfish ambition, arrogance, and probably any other negative thing you can think of! Here are some of my thoughts, (I’m being REALLLL vulnerable here, ahh!) Sometimes I feel that I am inadequate to spread the gospel; that I am “doing to much” when it comes to being a Christian; that God really didn’t tell me everything he told me; that I am already good enough for anything God needs me to do, and I don’t need to grow; negative thoughts and hateful thoughts about my brothers/sisters in Christ; thoughts of sin, actions of sin, making excuses for my sins saying, “its not that bad, its not like I did ‘that’….; and being overall frustrated with the “process”!Whew. I might need to stay there for a little. Story of my life is wanting everything done, when I want it done. Same thing goes with God. I told God I wanted a specific type of boyfriend and I have incredibly high standards, and I expected God to give him to me the next week. Since that did not happen. I am now in the waiting process. This process. Hum. Just in general, getting overwhelmed and frustrated with waiting on God causes the most internal conflict in my life! Elder Crawford spoke on how beneficial it is for God to take us through a process, and I know that it is, but at times, I just am FED UP with working on this and waiting on that, that I honestly just want to give up and forfeit on God and I’s deal. The process that we go through is only there because it prepares us to be able to stand in our next elevated position! It is necessary, every last bit of it. And because of my sinful nature and my innate rebel from the things of God, part of me wants to please God so bad and work towards the greater good, but the other part of me, that part mentioned above, doesn’t even care! But I know that it will be worth it! So to encourage you folks, DON’T let those internal negative rebellious thoughts distract you from fulfilling your purpose in God! Stay focused! Keep fighting! The way you build your spiritual immune system is through the Word! 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.