One of my favorite childhood memories is of the week I would spend each year at Bible camp. It was a chance to be away from home in the beauty of Yosemite and make new friends while studying the Bible and learning all kinds of new songs…I loved to learn all the songs.
And this is where I remember learning about the fruits of the spirit for the first time.
…But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness….(Galatians 5:22)
Every year as I rode home I would fill the car with non-stop singing as I left filled with all my good intentions for becoming the perfect little girl in the coming year. Perfect being the optimal word because each year, as I slowly came back to earth, I found that my good intentions, like an unfulfilled new year’s resolution, were hard to live up to.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things. (I Corinthians 13:11)
So easy to skip the obvious.
So tempting to try to do things all on our own.
Now I realize that these qualities are fruit and not just something I can snap my fingers to produce no matter how much I try. I must first learn to develop my picture of Jesus and to rest in his presence. When I make regular practice of sitting with him, and gazing upon his beauty, his Spirit can then live in me and the fruit of that relationship is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness.
I am not alone and I can rest in his care.
As we approach the coming week let this Psalm of David be ever on our lips.
One think I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
The Lord is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear?
My heart says of you, “Seek his face! your face, Lord, I will seek.”
I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. ~Psalm 27: 4, 1, 8, 13
May the Lord bless you and keep you in his care.
Coming Soon
The Joyful Sound: Reflections on the Life of Christ in Art and Music.
God Thru the Arts 