Good Fruit: Joy

Sometimes we have joy because of our circumstances.

When an acquaintance asks the standard question, "How are you?" our reply is "Great!" or "Excellent!" or "Wonderful!" rather than the usual "Fine." We have work that we enjoy. Our family is healthy and/or wealthy. We feel on top of the world. Our joy comes from the fact that life is good.

Sometimes we have joy in spite of our circumstances.

Life is not good. Economic downturn, financial struggles, illness, troubled (or ended) marriage, rebellious children, and so on... Even though these circumstances completely stink, we do our best to find joy somewhere. This kind of joy sounds like, "We may be out of work, but at least everyone is healthy."

True joy, though, is not found in our circumstances or in spite of our circumstances. True joy is found in Christ alone.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

~ John 15:5-11 (emphasis mine)

It seems that Christ has given us a formula for joy:

1. Remain in Him (and His love). (vs. 5, 7, 9)
2. Let Him (and His Words) remain in us. (vs. 5, 7, 9, 10)
3. Bear fruit. (vs. 5, 8)
4. Give God glory. (vs. 8)
5. Keep His commands. (vs. 10)
6. Let His joy be in us. (vs. 11)
7. Our joy is complete. (vs. 11)

Call me crazy, but I don't see anything in here about our circumstances. Good or bad, they are beside the point. Our joy comes when we abide in Him.
 What do you think about this kind of joy - complete joy? Have you ever experienced it? Have you had it and lost it?

For other posts in the Good Fruit series (which, I confess, is taking much longer than 10 weeks to get through), click right here.

Good Fruit: Forbearance (aka patience)

There are some girls at the bus stop who "annoy" my girls. They aren't mean-spirited or anything. In fact, I suspect that the opposite is true. They probably lean toward the overly-friendly category. When my girls head out to the bus stop, these other young ladies shriek and holler, calling at them to "Hurry up! Come on! Get over here!" And they prattle on (and on and on) until everyone is loaded on the bus in their respective seats (which, much to my girls' relief, are far apart).

This morning, we were having a discussion about being kind to other people. We were talking about why it's important to be patient, even with (or especially with) people who you may find annoying. I explained that I don't think these girls are trying to get on anyone's nerves, and that perhaps all that's needed is a kind and gentle, "Please don't do that. It bothers me."

As the girls headed out the door, I talked to God about the situation and asked for wisdom. Some situations are clear-cut, such as bullying. But others...well, what's a mom to do? To say?

God reminded me of times in my life where I've felt annoyed with others. First I thought of the lady who always gave me advice, every single time she saw me. It was always the same, "Enjoy your children, dear. They grow up so fast." I would smile and nod, all the while thinking about how tired I was of the same old cliches. Then I thought of the "close talker." No matter how many times I took a step back during our conversation, she always ended up so far into my bubble of personal space that I felt her sucking up my oxygen. I empathised with my girls, because it isn't easy to be kind and patient with all people all the time.

Then I recalled some other times I've felt annoyed and shown it. Working in the kitchen, a child crowds in and gets in my path, and I wave my hands around and say, "Get out of my space!" Another child, looking for some attention, makes silly sounds or chatters to no one. I say, "Stop making noise just for the sake of making noise." Just one moment ago, as I typed this post, a child asked me what I'm working on. I said, "Never mind. Just do your jobs."

Conviction falls over me like rain. All the wisdom in the world cannot help me teach my children to forbear with one another if I will not restrain my own impatient and irritated impulses with them.

When I last posted for this series (ironically, on patience), I specifically avoided the word forbearance (as used in the NIV) and went with patience (used in the NLT). I reasoned that it didn't "fit" with where I was headed that day. Perhaps I didn't want to see that what Paul was calling us to was neither patience (as in the opposite of impatience) nor perseverance (as in the opposite of easily giving up), but truly to forbearance.

To forbear is to refrain, restrain yourself, abstain, hold back, or withhold. It is - in spite of one's feelings or instincts - to hold back from acting annoyed, impatient, or frustrated.

I guess my girls aren't the only ones in need of a lesson today. And perhaps, rather than offering them wisdom, it's time I offer them a living example.

For the record, one of these days I'd really like to have some "ah-ha" moments that are solely for teaching. This being convicted about virutually everything I write about, it's getting a wee bit exhausting!

Good Fruit: Patience

"Hurry up!"

"Come on!"

"Let's go!"

Phrases I exclaim to my children daily. More than daily.

I often think of patience as having less of that. Less rush. Less hurry. Less "go, go go." When I pray for patience it is usually because I have been dealing with discipline issues impatiently. I want to feel more patient, be more patient. Somewhere along the way, we have come to understand patience to mean serenity and calmness.

What if we've got it all wrong, though? What if the word we use to define patience isn't really what God meant in Galatians? Perhaps that type of patience (calmness) is really more of a self-control issue, and God had something else in mind when He used Paul to exhort us to have love, joy, peace, patience...

I looked up patience as it is in the context of the letter to the Galatians, and it is defined as: endurance, constancy, steadfastness, perseverance, and slowness in avenging wrongs. Am I the only one a little bit surprised to find that patience actually means staying power, persistence, and lack of vengefulness?

Can you think of a time when you exhibited this type of patience? Go ahead and share it in the comments.

Frankly, I'm a little relieved. No more striving to feel calm about everything! Well, until I get to tackling that self-control thing...

Good Fruit: Peace

In the Good Fruit series, I have decided to go against my natural inclination to be "orderly" and jot my thoughts about each fruit of the Spirit in whatever order they come to me. It's okay, really. I can deal with the fact that I've jumped from love to peace. Yup. Dealing...

To read the whole series, click here and start at the bottom.

When I envision what it's like to be a peaceful woman, I tend to imagine a calm, gentle, grandmotherly type who rests quietly with a hint of a smile on her face. When I see the woman called Peace, she is often sitting on a park bench by the lake shore. This morning, God showed me that my image of peace is all wrong!*

If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. ~Isaiah 48:18

Rivers are anything but quiet, gentle, and still. The rush of a river is loud and fast, and can quickly overwhelm even the strongest of swimmers.

Peace may not be found by resting in solitude and breathing deeply, after all. I am beginning to see that peace is more like a living, active sensation that overwhelms and overtakes us. Just as worry laps up to cover us like the ocean's tide swallows the beach inch by inch, so too can peace. I believe we can invite peace to come in that same way - wave by wave - until it is a river rushing over us with such force that we cannot come out from under it.

I always thought that I should quietly seek out peace until I found it. I wonder how different we might all be, how different our peace might look, if we instead allowed it to wash over our heads and swallow us up.

What do you think? Have you ever really envisioned peace as a raging river?


* Credit for changing my thought process goes to Beth Moore's Living Free.

What is Love? (week two of the Good Fruit series)

Intro
Week One

As I typed the title of this post, I heard that "classic" song from the movie Night at the Roxbury in my head, complete with pumping bass and head-bopping side-to-side. What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more. Woh-e-oh oh-e-oh-oh oh-e-oh-oh... The funny thing is, I think that song about sums it up! Love doesn't hurt anyone.

These past couple weeks, I've been praying that God will teach me something new about love for this series. As always, He was faithful to answer. And as usual, not in the way I was hoping for. I had planned on Him showing me new passages in the Bible about love, giving me new understanding and revelation. But God knows how I really learn my lessons, so He gave a week full of practical application - one opportunity after another - in addition to many more that did not get posted - to be loving (in spite of my natural inclination to be...um, witchy).

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. ~1 Corinthians 13:1-3

So I began putting it all together in my head:

I can:
- speak in tongues
- be a prophet
- have great faith
- give generously
- be a martyr
(1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

But if I:
- am not patient and kind
- am envious, boastful, or proud
- am rude and self-seeking
- am easily angered
- keep track of wrongs
- delight in evil
- don't rejoice in truth
- do not protect, trust, or hope
- do not persevere
- fail
(1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

Then I:
- am basically an annoying banging noise
- am nothing
- will gain nothing
(back to verses 1-3)

My track record is running at about 50-50. When the extraordinary (and obvious) challenges crop up I find that I am able to be loving to those around me.  But in the day-to-day ordinary stuff (for example, 3 out of 4 children being horrifically cranky and painfully slow at getting ready this morning), I am a clanging cymbal.

I have a lot to learn about love. And it makes me wonder, is it even possible to exhibit the other fruits of the Spirit without love? I mean, aren't they (the fruits) all really just the facets of love Paul describes in I Corinthians? Do you think the fruits are listed in this order on purpose?

Do you see why I've been having trouble coming up with a coherent post here?! My brain, it is a-whirring!

What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...

Good Fruit: a series, week one

Alternately titled:
Growing Together in the Fruit of the Spirit.

I am the vine, you are the branches. If you stay joined to Me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without Me. ~John 15:5 (CEV)

For several days, I have been pondering what it means to remain in God. I have been studying it in my Bible and on biblegateway, I have been praying about it and mulling it over, so that I can produce a meaningful blog post to introduce this series.

The fact is, while studying God's Word is a vital part of growing in knowledge and understanding, we are a visual people who learn best through the tangible. I believe we need to see what it might look like to abide in Christ in order to implement change in our own lives.

Who is the woman that abides?

- She is confident of her standing in God's family. She is a princess, daughter of the King, and she knows it.
- She believes God's Word to be absolutely true, and trusts in His faithfulness.
- She faces adversity with a sense of strength, hope, peace, and expectation.
- She is unaware of society's standards for beauty and success.
- She has joy in her heart and reflected on her face, at all times and in all circumstances.
- She knows when to speak and when to shut up.
- She has fun.
- She is liked by all simply because she likes them.
- She is not full of worry, fear, anxiety, or sorrow.
- She does the work that God has called her to with confidence and humility.
- She spends more time thinking about others than herself.
- She is generous with her time and resources.

The woman who stays joined to Christ doesn't just do good things. She doesn't check off spiritual disciplines from her "to do" list. The woman lives in Him (and He in her) is different on the inside. She has a heart attitude that reflects her relationship.

The secret to bearing good fruit is not praying 24/7, reading the Bible daily, memorizing Scripture, or doing good works. Those are all good things that we sure should aspire to do, but we can do all those things and still only produce fruit that withers and dies.

The secret to growing good fruit to full ripeness resides in our hearts - it is about having a love relationship with the One who nourishes our roots. When we are rooted in Christ and we allow our identity - our worth, our value, our calling - to be determined by nothing other than who He says we are, the branches of our lives will be weighed down by lush, fragrant fruit!

What would you say is the #1 characteristic of a woman who abides?

Apples and Oranges and Bananas, Oh My!

In my quiet times lately, a couple verses keep coming back to me...

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a [wo]man remains in me and I in [her] she will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ~John 15:5

and

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

On a bit of a side note - both of these verses were memory verses for me in 2009. I just tried to type them from memory. I do believe it would be a good time to review last year's verses!

Like I said, these verses keep coming back to me. In my listening time, God has been repeatedly reminding me to remain in Him so that I can bear good fruit. Then the list of the fruits of the Spirit dances around in my thoughts. (Not unlike the visions of sugar plumbs that the children see in 'Twas the Night Before Christmas; hence the title of the post, and yes - I do believe I am a bit sleep-deprived this morning!)

For the next ten weeks, I am going to pour myself into studying God's Word on these things (one week on understanding what it is to remain, nine weeks on the fruits). I'd love for you to join me. Who am I kidding?! If you come and read regularly, you have no choice! Bwahahahaha! Kidding - you obviously do have a choice. I just hope you will choose to dig into God's Word with me.

Here's how it will look... I'm going to make it a little series of one post per week. There will be no set day, as I want to let God lead. If I need an entire week in His Word to understand a little bit about patience, then the post will show up on Friday. If I walk smack-dab into revelation about self-control (sure, that'll happen) on Monday you'll see a post early in the week. (I realize you may not be too concerned about which day of the week the post appears on. Really, this paragraph was written for me. Because being random goes pretty strongly against my order-oriented grain. So I need a little time to wrap my head around the concept. Mkay?)

In the posts I will share verses I find, thoughts I have, questions that come up. I'd like for it to be an interactive thing, so please share your thoughts, verses, and questions in the comments. (Honestly, you people have no idea how much I love it when you comment! It warms my heart. Seriously. I an affirmation junkie.)

I am already learning some lessons on patience this morning, as everyone was up at 6am and has been coming in my office asking for things for an hour! Sorry, I tend to go off on rabbit trails like that when I am repeatedly interrupted.

Back on topic now. Oh wait, never mind. The end. :)