Rigidity is a bad thing, for the winds of the Spirit blow where they will, until they run up against walls. That’s what we erect: barriers to the Holy Spirit, Who seeks to work wonders through us.
When wind hits a wall, there is turbulence.
Many maladies result.
Rigidity is hardness. A “hard head” makes us hard of hearing.
Rigidity is hardness of heart. A hard heart hardens the arteries.
Rigidity creates tension. A tense heart can cause a coronary.
When vessels in the eyes are rigid and dry we can go blind. There is degeneration. There is also: spiritual blindness. We adhere to Scripture but do not practice it.
This is not about relativism. This is about our interior lives — whether we leave room for God to operate. Let’s ask: who is in charge? Are we? Or the Lord? He needs room to operate, and He can’t when we regulate everything like a computer.
Rigidity degenerates. It builds up pressure — blood pressure. When we are rigid our bodies lack flexibility, and so do our minds. A stiff branch breaks loudly. The cement in our thoughts clogs our joints. There is the demon of dementia. We’re sclerotic. What is not flexible, snaps.
In what ways are you rigid? Where in your life, routine, and thinking is there room for God to shape your day and your work and your recreation? Or are you stiff and mechanical, a robot when you are meant to be a temple of the Holy Spirit? Is everything mechanical, by the tick of the clock?
Is your life an algorithm?
When we are rigid we never flex, never adapt, are not malleable (“Lord, mold me”); never listen, never weigh another side, or think matters from all views (“But for the Grace of God…”); we’re “hard to please”; we work work work, no rest; no exercise; imbalance; we think think think, no meditation; and when we are not flexible enough for the Holy Spirit to use and mold and move us, the wind of Truth meets the wall and erodes or breaks it.
In the end, no wall stands up to it. As a garden hose must be flexible in order for water to nurture the lawn, so must we be vessels of His Living Water.
A skyscraper often survives earthquakes because it is flexible — more so than three-story structures, which crumble at the first shake. What happens if you stand rigidly on a train or subway as it pulls in or heads out from a station? Abraham went and traveled wherever the Lord sent him. He encountered miracles.
Flexibility does not mean weakness and it does not mean diverting from the laws and Word and traditionalism of Christ.
In the end, the strongest heart is the one open to the flow and sculpting of God. This is success!
We are with the wind of the Holy Spirit when we live by the Law of Love, more than human laws. Rid rigidity from the way you approach each day. Let God organize it through prayer.
Be not hard of heart. Let Him flow through you, not over you; not around you; not against you!
A word of knowledge: “I am a just God, not a legalistic One.”