Day 3

Staying gentle and quiet in a hard world

Instead, your beauty should consist of your true inner self, the ageless beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of the greatest value in God's sight. 1 Peter 3:4

I remember the first time today’s verse struck a nerve in my spirit. It was after a UPS delivery guy had repeatedly acted in a way that I interpreted as disrespectful to me and I felt like a fool. I had set in my heart to put him in his place and show him that he couldn’t ‘do me anyhow’ just because I am a woman. That early morning however, God revealed this scripture to me and I immediately started crying. I knew He was telling me not to go ahead with my plan to prove myself and it hurt. I understood He was revealing to me what mattered to HIm and it was now up to me to say yes and choose to trust Him. Choose to trust that He had my back and that I did not need to fight for myself. Since then, I have chosen to keep saying yes to choosing that which the Lord finds very precious, a gentle and quiet spirit regardless of the situation. 

Does this mean it gets easier? Hahaha and an extra ha. Very rarely are things that refine us and make us more like Christ easy but with the Holy Spirit and our willingness, it is doable. 

The kingdom of heaven is built on things unseen. Everything worth anything is built on the inner working, it’s just the way God set it up. You want to lose weight? You start with deciding in your heart to lose weight and then you clean your diet and exercise before it starts to show outside. You want to get a promotion at work? You’ve got to do all the inner workings (networking, mentorship, late nights, early mornings) to get you noticed and rewarded. 

Since we know that what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Cor 4:18), we must do the inner work of dying to flesh so that we can birth true beauty and break the habit of thinking of ourselves and how others will view us instead of what will please God. 

It is always a heart matter. That’s what God looks at, not your actions or outside pretense. Act as you are in your heart and if you are ashamed of it, take it to God for healing. 

This is the prayer I said that morning and below is the response from God. I hope after reading this that you will say a prayer of your own.

Me: Lord please help me, I’m weak. Give me the strength I need to submit to pleasing you the way that is important to you. 

God: If you give it all to Me, nothing can take it away nor will it ever tarnish or fade because I will power it for you. I will be your life source. It means you’re choosing to trust me to fight all your battles and I never fail.