Puffer Fish

 

Day 15. Admonition   Of Knowing the Spirit of God.   A servant of God may know if they have the Spirit of God: if when the Lord works some good through them, their body—since it is ever at variance with all that is good—is not puffed up.  But rather they become viler in their own sight, and they esteem themselves less than others.  [4]

Puffer Fish   My reaction to this admonition is different than before, immediately I read the admonition  I thought of ‘Puffer Fish”   They are also known as blowfish, Puffer fish are clumsy swimmers who fill their elastic stomachs with huge amounts of water (and sometimes air) to blow themselves up, hence Blowfish/Puffer fish, to several times their normal size.   Puffer fish do appear on the menu here and there and unless the soup is properly prepared can be deadly, resulting in the person becoming a zombie.   Yet the poison resides not in the fish but rather in its previous meal.   In carrying out God’s work in the world we can become puffed up with pride when we lose sight of the fact that in our selves we can do nothing for the Lord; we are vessels of the Holy Spirit who works through us.   In forgetting this we sometimes become full of ourselves, forgetting the Holy Spirit, puffing ourselves up for all to see, the poison of our delusions of grandeur doing mischief…   Despite this I feel that reviling ourselves is too strong a term for today’s world. We do need to keep our proportions right, but rather than cause harm to ourselves, better to pray for the Spirit of thoughtfulness to remind us that it is God borrowing us for God’s own good purposes.   We are only truly human when we are conscious of our place in the hierarchy of the created

[4 ]Cod O and Is. read “If therefore his body is puffed up, he has not the Spirit of God. If, however, he becomes rather viler in his own sight, then he truly has the Spirit of God.”

Information about puffer fish from National Geographic for kids   And Wikipedia