Wow! It's been awhile since I have blogged. Too much going on, for sure.

I was thinking of that scripture in Isaiah 40:4, "Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth." Now, I know that this is speaking of the future of Israel based on God's promise to Abraham. However, I also see something in the verse for me -- you. I am thinking about personality and way-of-life. All of us have our weaknesses and strengths in our personalities, and all of us have crooked ways of doing things and thinking about things, maybe we are a little too rough sometimes in our thoughts or words or actions.

Here is a picture of what God is doing in our personal lives, by way of the Holy Spirit. He is filling up the low, inadequate places in our personalities; sheering off the more vaunted hilltops of our thinking; straightening out our ways and polishing our roughness. His greatest desire is for us to be completely like him, which means a perfect personality. Now we may not get it totally right until we enter glory, but that doesn't mean he isn't working on us now. And I think it is helpful, when our personalities flare up (or dip down), that we recognize our faults and surrender them to the Lord so that he can get the job done more quickly.

Of course it hurts, but he is beyond worrying about the hurts. He is looking at the finished product. Proverbs says (27:17), "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend." Can you imagine the sparks and banging sounds of iron working against iron to get a desired product (cf. the blacksmith)? And of course, the promise of the New Testament: "He that has begun a good work in you will continue it until the day of Christ!"

Let's work with God to "fill up" and "make low" and "straighten" and "smooth"!