This morning’s word is Carry It Clean.
The anchor verse is Psalm 138:8.
“The Lord will fulfill HIS purpose for me.”
Two hundred and twenty-two years ago today, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on the expedition that would change a continent. They had no map of where they were going. They had a commission, a small group of people, and a willingness to walk into ground they had not seen. They almost died several times. They came back with information that opened a country.
The expedition is remembered because it was carried out cleanly. Not perfectly. Not without conflict. But the men who carried it did not retaliate against the obstacles or the misunderstandings. They took the next step. Then the next one.
That is what carrying a purpose looks like.
When God places something in your hands, the work is not only the destination. The work is also the carrying. Anyone can carry a heavy thing for a mile. The harder thing is to carry it for the whole season without letting the weight turn into bitterness.
The Spirit gives gifts. Paul says so plainly. Different gifts to different people, all from the same Spirit. But Paul also says the Spirit gives something else. The fruit. Patience. Kindness. Gentleness. Self-control. Those are not optional add-ons to the gifts. They are how the gifts are meant to be carried.
A gift carried in harshness stops being a gift. A purpose pursued with retaliation stops being a purpose. The Spirit gives both the gift and the temperament for carrying it.
I am asking myself today where I am tempted to carry what God has placed in my hands without the Spirit’s patience. There are places where dismissal pulls me toward defensiveness, where impatience makes me want to force timing GOD has already settled, where I am tempted to make the work prove itself before it has had time to grow.
The Lord will fulfill HIS purpose for me. I do not have to force what HE has already promised to finish.
So today the prayer is simple.
Holy Spirit, give me the patience to carry what YOU have placed in my hands. Keep me from harshness when the work is misunderstood. Keep me from retaliation when the door does not open as fast as I want. Let me trust YOUR timing and stay faithful to the next step.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.