Am I Going to Be OK? The Fruits of the Spirit

How we display or not, the fruits of the Spirit in our lives is a way to measure our spiritual maturity.

GULP!

Yep, double gulp, actually.

I have to admit that hearing this idea did not fill my heart with joy. When our dear pastor developed this concept at church last Sunday, I sort of cringed. I wanted to become invisible. I felt my face turning red with the blush of shame. I thought I perceived a subconscious, split-second glance coming my way from the members of my family sitting next to me on the pew. However, I don’t think it was them, really. I think it was me, having a momentary out-of-body experience, staring back at my pitiful self as an outsider…judging myself in silence.

Sigh…

I do not feel like I do a good job displaying the fruits of the Spirit in my life. Therefore, I am not a matured Christian. I am in the infant stages of my spiritual walk with Christ. I might not even be crawling, if you ask me… I’m a baby on her back who can’t even lay on her side.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5: 22-23

I struggle to display some, more than others, but the truth is, I struggle with all of them. I can’t honestly say I display any of them in any significant way.

I have meditated on them. I have prayed that God grows them in me. I have tried to incorporate them in my life. I have failed in all my attempts.

Notice how many times I have said “I” so far. I stopped counting at 20 times.

Jon Courson’s Bible commentary says, on this topic of the fruits and “I”: “Too often we want the fruit of the Spirit in our lives so we can be satisfied, so we can be happy, so we can be fulfilled. But that’s not the purpose of the fruit…fruit bearing is not for our own satisfaction, but in order that others might be nourished from the fruit produced in, through and often, in spite of us. Focus on yourself, and you’ll be miserable. Be a lover of God and of people. Get your eyes off your problems and pains, your tears and fears. Look for ways to refresh, satisfy and bless others… and you’ll find the secret of life itself.”

It’s all about remembering that it is not about us. Living by that concept, however, requires a transformation of our mind that will allow the shift on perspective. Change is difficult. I have spent almost half a century being self-centered. Changing that fact is not either easy nor quick. I am part of the “microwave-instant-right-now” generation, like Holley Gerth calls it. Therefore, I tend to think that change should happen as soon as I decide it’s time. As she so clearly states in the chapter about the brain in her book You Are Going to Be Okay, change simply doesn’t happen that way. The brain is not wired in a way that the transformation of our way of thinking and how we handle events could happen instantaneously.

Of course, God can work a miracle in us whenever and in whichever way He’d like to. He designed our brains, however, so He knows exactly how it works. Therefore, the demands that we impose on ourselves are just that: self-imposed, unrealistic demands. We need to give ourselves permission to be imperfect. When we lift our demands for perfection…when we stop making it about us, God moves forward. Releasing ourselves from our own traps is a transformation in and of itself. This transformation is not easy or quick either. Therefore, the exhortation to praying without ceasing. Being intentional about praying as we step aside of our own lives to allow the Holy Spirit to move forward in the messy garden of our souls is of the utmost importance.

Holley Gerth’s exploration of the brain in chapter 3 of this powerful, little book is extremely interesting and revealing. Her strategies on how to change the way we handle our circumstances and how we think about them is very thought-provoking. Her idea of using the fruits of the Spirit as a tool to measure our thought-live against, in order to rationally collaborate with the Holy Spirit in the transformation of our mind is life-altering. I will focus on this particular aspect of chapter 3 in the next post. In the meantime, hang on to Christ and thank Him for the healing power of His presence at all times.