White Wolf, Black Wolf

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Hi I’m Christin Ditchfield and this is Take It To Heart!

I once heard a story about a young Native American boy whose heart was raging over the injustice and persecution and prejudice he experienced. He was filled with hurt, anger, bitterness, a desire for revenge. He knew it wasn’t right to let these feelings eat at him – it just made him even more miserable -- but he didn’t know what to do about it. At last he confided in his grandfather, a wise old man who always seemed at peace.

“Have you ever felt this way?” he asked.

His grandfather answered, “In my heart are two wolves, a white wolf and a black wolf.

Every day they fight for control of my heart.”

“Which one is stronger?” asked the boy. “Which one wins?”

His grandfather replied, “Whichever one I feed.”

As believers we experience that same struggle, the battle between our new nature and our old nature, the spirit and the flesh. (Romans 7:15-25) When we feed our sin nature – when we dwell on our hurts and hardships, when we indulge the lusts of the flesh, when we fill ourselves with the world’s wisdom, the world’s attitudes, the world’s way of thinking and doing and being – then our sin nature grows stronger, while our spirit grows weak. But when we feed our new nature, when we feed our spirit – filling it with the Word of God, focusing on things that are good and right and noble and true – then our spirit grows stronger and our flesh weak. (Philippians 4:8) It gets easier to do the right thing, make the wise choice, resist temptation, overcome the mistakes of the past.

The battle is on every day, between, as the wise old grandfather put it, the White

Wolf and the Black Wolf.

Which one are you feeding today?