Follow the Spirit's Counsel

In today Gospel,   Mt. 12: 1-8, Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees for going through a field of grain on the Sabbath and picking the heads of grain and eating them.  The Pharisees chastise him for “doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath.”  He tells them He “desires mercy, not sacrifice.”  How often, I thought, do I not judge myself mercilessly, demanding sacrifice of myself, or others, and not being compassionate and understanding.  I asked Jesus to further instruct me. So I switched to my non-dominant hand and began writing. The following is what came through my consciousness:

             _____(Insert your name       , doing what is right means being sensible and wise as the

             Spirit guides you. That is what I did.  I knew it was a Sabbath.  And Sabbath laws were

             strict about what you could do and not do on the Sabbath.

              ___(Insert your name)     , another person may have strict laws of what you can and

             cannot do. You, too, may be strongly opposed to what is right or wrong for another

             person. What you or the other person does not see is the Spirit’s counsel and wisdom

              directing the other to make the choice he or she is making. 

I was taught those same laws the Pharisees were reciting to Me. There is then God’s

law written on the heart that the Pharisees could not see. That law is written on

every person’s heart, including your own, and sometimes it brings you into the arena

of opposing forces that rear their heads within your own being or from the outside.

Will you follow the Spirit’s call or back down, following a law, which at that moment,

 in mercy and love, needs to be broken?

 That message hit me between the eyes! What about you?