Inside Job

There are lots of movies and content related to the “inside job,” and some of the Ocean’s 11 movies come to mind when I think of this term.  In my thinking, “inside job” has overtones of someone knowing the company's inner workings so they can use such information to do something for their own best interests. 

At the same time, I think the term “inside job” is interesting to consider in relation to what is happening in our interior life.  This is worth consideration because not everything we exhibit externally reflects what we’re thinking about or what’s happening in our souls.  To this end, I think it’s important to talk about the “Inside Job.”  It’s also helpful to think about our interior so that we don’t get stuck in the bait and react trap. This happens when someone “pushes our buttons,” and we almost mindlessly react.

Additionally, we need to consider what’s happening in our souls because I think that we can easily neglect them or not pay attention to what’s happening inside of us.  Sometimes this happens when we blame something or someone around us to shift the focus and responsibility away from looking at our interior.   

We can see lots of examples in our daily living that demonstrate neglecting our interior life.  One such example is “road rage. ” This is often an external exhibition for pent-up anger and aggression from other things, such as job struggles, family angst and personal stress.  In general, I think it’s easier to vent and express our interior stress sideways rather than look inside and consider what’s happening in our souls. 

To help us consider our interior life, I think a key solution is to allow Holy Spirit to have access to what’s happening inside us, including our thought life, emotions, heart, points of view, insecurities, memories and more. 

With this in mind, let’s consider that Holy Spirit wants to reside in our hearts, based on Paul’s words in Romans 8:9-11, when he speaks about Holy Spirit dwelling in us.  Additionally, Paul says in Romans 8:6, “For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the Spirit is life and peace.”  A few verses later in Romans 8:16, Paul says that Holy Spirit confirms with our spirit that we are God’s children.  This speaks to Holy Spirit’s ability to validate and confirm our true identity as God’s child. 

I’m firmly convinced that our interior lives need lots of divine help.  We need lots of interior help from Holy Spirit to show us our blind spots – many of which would likely be surprising to us.  We need Holy Spirit’s help to strengthen our inner person like Paul says in Ephesians 3:16: “…He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.”  Finally, I think that we need fellowship with Holy Spirit more and more so that the fruits of Holy Spirit can be natural expressions of this fellowship. 

These are the fruits we read about in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;…”  I’ve learned that when I try to exhibit these great characteristics with any consistency on my own, it’s frustrating at best.  However, the more fellowship I have with Holy Spirit, the more these fruits can become natural expressions in my life, even when I’m in stressful circumstances. 

Let’s invite Holy Spirit into our souls to do “inside jobs” so that our exterior engagement in life can have more divine underpinnings!