After the Great Wasp Massacre, I oiled all the creaky hinges in the house. The bathroom door now swings open noiselessly. It also keeps moving until the bottom hits one of the mats. In the past, I could rely on it not moving but now,  it will swing right back out – unless you pull or push the door shut. So the other day, I didn’t completely shut the door and it swung back into the bathroom, grazing my leg (our bathroom is classic DC small). For a brief moment I was annoyed.

It never used to do that.

The door never did that because it wasn’t oiled. The wood rubbed on the wood. It would creak. It would stick. Now? It’s been lubricated!

It struck me that this is exactly what happens when we grow in The Spirit – healing, being rejuvenated and restored – discovering who God meant for us to be. We discover that it becomes easier to be open, transparent and we move with a purpose, lightness, joy and sense of security that we never did. We are more God-conscious and less self-conscious. When confronted with pain, suffering, troubles and fears we don’t spend as long in depressed and suffocating spaces. We begin to find it easier to return to a place of greater equanimity and recall the positive truths that God has spoken into our lives and over us.

But just like how the door now annoyed me because it was swinging free, our growth and healing will invariably annoy someone in our lives who is used to us being wounded rather than whole. Unexpected opposition from loved ones may surprise, hurt and anger us. They can come to resent us for no longer fitting the templates they had for us or no longer being available for them in the unhealthy ways we were before. We are no longer useful to them in our new state and this may upset them greatly. They’ll scornfully inform us that we’re different, uppity, arrogant, selfish or even bemoan our seeming lack of response to their needs. They’ll stonewall us, ignore us, implore us and even talk about us behind our backs.

No matter!

As painful as this resistance to our healing may be at first, we cannot allow it to dampen the flow of the oil of The Holy Spirit to continue to reduce the friction between ourselves and God – to transmit God’s force and essence into and channel it through us. We must not allow the narrow-mindedness of others to prevent us from experiencing the vastness of God!