Today I walked to a vacant lot near my house and clipped a few branches of apple blossoms off of a crabapple tree. The blooming branches look lovely placed in a vase and sitting on top of the cabinet next to my favorite chair in our kitchen nook.
While I love the beauty of fruit tree blossoms, blossoms aren't the fruit, are they? They are the sign of fruit to come. When autumn comes, that tree in the vacant lot will be full of crabapples. In the meanwhile it isn't stressed out about bearing fruit. It doesn't strive, work and sweat to produce fruit. It simply soaks up water and nutrients from the soil through its roots and absorbs sunlight as well as carbon dioxide through its leaves and the fruit eventually comes!
For too long I've treated the list of the fruit of the Spirit as a to-do list. It was the list of character traits that I needed to strive toward. I needed to try harder to be loving. Try harder to be patient. Try harder to be gentle. Try harder to have more self-control. And then one day, I actually noticed these words in my Amplified Bible. "But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge]." Galatians 5:22-23 AMPC
(Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, April 28th at Woman to Woman Ministries, where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)
We are all works in progress. Praying the Holy Spirit brings gladness, humility, self-control, and patience to both of us.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
DeleteThe Holy Spirit has given me the same revelation recently Elizabeth.And then He gave me an experience with someone and filled my heart with the love of God for them. The kind of love that is only the "fruit" of the Spirit at work in my life.
ReplyDelete