I'm in Kansas City again this week. Had a big kick-off meeting for our next project with all of the top brass at Park University, including the VP from my group. I didn't think it went all that well, but I received rave reviews from he customer and the University's President.

I'm still reading Galatians every day. I'm stuck on Galatians 5:16-24:

18 Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
19 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; 20 trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; 21 the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

"Living by the Spirit of God" sounds like a great thing to do, but I'm stuck on how. Just like the verse says, I wrestle back and forth between what I know is right and what's wrong. I know the consequences that Paul lists out here are spot-on.

Paul continues on in verses 22-23 saying:

22 But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard--things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, 23 not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.

It's a no-brainer, why would I so easily trade the former for the latter? I want to live by the Spirit of God, and I'm not sure right now what that means for me. There's in the back of my mind that says I just need to work harder at living in the Spirit, which smacks in the face of what I've been reading this month in Galatians, just in this chapter, this verse. That it's for "Freedom that Christ has set us free" - and I'm free. I'm just not sure where to go from here.