Keeping Us In Line

Using Microsoft Word and other word processing programs has had a strange, secondary impact upon my thinking. I have found myself making some foolish assumptions. As you know, Microsoft Word automatically underscores any questionable grammar in blue and underscores any outright mistakes (misspelled words and repeated words) in red.   

But I’ve become so accustomed to this “protection” that when taking ballpoint pen in hand and writing in ink I assume the same “spell check” is operating. Perhaps I don’t actually “think this way” but I certainly “feel this way.” I sense that “what I’ve written must be OK because I don’t see any red or blue.” I actually feel that the same electronic grammatical aids will accompany me outside the realm of Microsoft. But outside Microsoft I’m on my own and if I don’t know any better or am not particularly careful, I’ll misspell words right and left. 

God’s Holy Spirit does for us in a moral sense what Microsoft Word does in a grammatical sense. When we err grammatically, Microsoft Word highlights the error; not to discourage us but to correct us and to keep us in line. The Holy Spirit does the same in our conduct and faith. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way! Walk in it!’” (Isaiah 30:21) So says the prophet Isaiah about God’s abiding Spirit Who leads us into all truth and protects us from error (John 16:13). But trying to live without the Spirit’s guidance is like me stepping outside the realm of Microsoft Word, writing away with my chicken-scrawl, oblivious to my errors, assuming “if it feels right, it must be OK.” My fallen nature desperately needs God’s redeeming grace and guiding Spirit. 

PRAYER: Dear Lord, turn the searchlight of Your Holy Spirit into my heart. Search me, O God, and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.