I found myself telling people lately when they ask how I’m doing, I’ve responded with “I’m feel like I’m living in a snow globe”. Now I’m finding myself thinking about those the words coming out of my mouth. Do I really want to keep complaining and remain in the energy of a snow globe? It’s not all that comfortable. Deep down I know that everything is going to fall into place, I will land on solid ground. However living through the process is interesting because I’m finding that there are tests that push against me. With all this circling about, I decided that I needed to focus on something else so I bought a CD series from Joyce Meyer on the Fruits of the Spirit. Renewing my mind with this type of stuff helps give some of my good thoughts a chance at sticking around before they get taken over by other distracting ones.
Up until now, I’ve never really knew about fruits of the spirit. I knew of them, but not about them. It is not a teaching I recall from my early CCD days.
The Fruits of the Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The concept is that the Fruits of the Spirit start off as seeds in our soul and is something we can develop in ourselves (by practicing them). This is Christian-based – but I don’t believe you have to be Christian to act in these ways. It just seems like those are character traits of good people.
We were not called to be busy, we were called to bear fruit
What do I mean by “fruit”? Fruit is manifested in our life as successes, breakthroughs, healings, understandings. Just like when you see a healthy tree and it produces healthy fruit, so it goes with our lives. When our roots are healthy, balanced, getting what they need, things fall into place. Good things happen. People notice and wonder.
Do you want to get along better with other people? Do you want to enjoy life more? I know I do.
I’ve found learning these concepts helps me filter out people who may not be great people to be around. You know, those people who you “just have a feeling about” but cannot put your finger on it? Perhaps they have no fruit. Joyce says “we need to be good fruit inspectors”. Gosh knows I need to pay more attention.
“15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
There is story where Jesus comes up to a fig tree, its leaves were large and appeared to be ready to have fruit, but when he turned the leaves over, there was no fruit. He cast down the tree and the tree shriveled up and died because the tree was not what it was “showing” itself to be. This parable can be related to those people in our lives who look the part on the outside, but on the inside they are a mess and not what they present to the “world”.
“Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
How fruitful am I (I wonder)? It just might be time to prune back some more dead branches… I’ve done a bit already, but it is spring.
My next few posts will talk about each fruit and I will be sure to have a few good stories of how I came to my understandings. I hope you stay along for the journey. (note – I definitely have a story for you…right after I wrote this post, I had a lesson in humility…The universe sure does deliver!)
Jay Gilmore says
Hello Juliann,
It’s funny I was trying to show Megan how to research a contact they are prospecting and build rapport and I came across your blog. Galatians 5:22 is my FAVORITE verse!!
I love what you wrote but I see you haven’t written in a while. I encourage you to start blogging again. I know it therapeutic and you are also a great writer!!
I hope this brought a smile to your face!!
Thanks,
Jay