Your Spirit is within me

In Charlie Brown's Christmas, Charlie Brown shares this interesting insight with Lucy concerning her disgust for Pig Pen.

"Don't think of it as dust. Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization. Maybe the soil of ancient Babylon. It staggers the imagination. He may be carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon, or even Nebuchudnezzar"
Pig Pen's reply?  "Sort of makes you want to treat me with a little more respect, doesn't it?"

As believers, we know that the Spirit of the living God resides inside of us.  We trust that His divine presence, loving guidance and saving grace breathes in our bodies.  As we agree with this statement, we might need to consider what Pig Pen queried.  Shouldn't that knowledge make us want to treat one another with a little more respect?

So, what's the problem? If Christ lives in me and Christ lives in you, why do we argue, abuse, shame or ignore one another so much of the time?  Even if we adopt the polite response of, "oh, bless your heart," to someone's face, there is so often an internal rolling-of-the-eyes. 

My spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak.  Is that it?  It's certainly a very spiritual response and brings some relief to our conscience.  Sometimes I wonder though, is my spirit willing?  How willing is my spirit to be generous, to be humble, to be self-sacrificing, to be lowly or misunderstood?  How willing is my spirit to let someone else get the credit or have the prize?  How willing is my spirit?

Sometimes I know that my spirit needs to have a better connection with His spirit.  (you would think if we were both housed in the same body, we would connect more often...but you know how busy we all are!)

Ah-ha.  How busy we all are.  Maybe in order to allow our spirit to better connect with His Spirit within us, we will have to slow down and allow the Word and our prayer to bring us closer to Him that is already here.  Maybe, if we slowed down enough to allow our spirits to be engulfed in Him, it would be by His power that we could treat others with greater respect.

It's not so much to treat others as you would want to be treated, but treat others as you would Christ. For today, let us ask the Holy Spirit to help our eyes to see past someone's flesh to the spirit within them and then for the grace to treat them with a little more respect.
I need to work on this.