Looking back it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I suppose it was an impulse-buy and I must have been very hungry when I pulled my wallet out and paid the $2.99 for it. The packaging looked 
attractive and I was still struggling with the disappointment of having gained back about twelve pounds of the thirty I had lost. I guess that’s why I bought that little bag of dried banana chips the other day. I think someone told me that that dried banana chips were healthy and I forgot the universal law that reminds us if something is marketed as being healthy it is also secretly processed to be tasteless. I ate three of the hundred or so of them in the bag. Little disks of tightly compressed sawdust is what it tasted and felt like in my mouth. I was going to feed the rest of the bag to the fish in my front-yard pond but I was afraid of being charged with cruelty to animals. Lesson learned: dried fruit does not make a chubby man happy.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” – Galatians 5:22-23 {ESV}
Let’s start out this Monday by getting honest with ourselves. On this list of the Spirit’s fruits, which one stands as the point of conviction in your life? Which one in this spiritual cornucopia comes the least frequently on your life’s table? Which one of these could be labeled the “dried fruit” in your life which requires some moistening vitality from on high?
Since scriptural love is best defined as seeking the highest good of another, I think I can say with some degree of confidence that I’m fairly safe here. Joy is something I work diligently at and God is gracious to have deposited it in me on a consistent level. Peace is not my weak point as it comes pretty easily for me to live in calm trust of my sovereign God. When I read of the fruit of kindness I don’t have the same confidence in my maturity level as I have the others. It’s not absent but kindness needs some deeper blossoming in my life; I need some work here. Goodness, faithfulness and self-control are all areas that God has stabilized me in and I don’t feel the sting of conviction when pondering these fruits.
It’s the gentleness-fruit that makes me want to shove my hands in my pocket, shuffle my feet, lower my head and ask for a free pass.
If I could buy a bag of the fruit of gentleness which proceeds from the tree of my life…it would be crunchy. God knows my heart and how often I’ve wrestled with this area of dried fruit syndrome. What compounds the matter is that I’m married to a woman whose most manifested fruit is this very gentleness. I’m just not there with her and others who seem to have been born in a Gentleness Orchard. I’m a fighter at heart and I find myself riding the roller-coaster of tit-for-tat with those who oppose me. Care to joust with me? I’ll be tempted to clear my schedule so we can make it an all day affair. I’ve been walking with Jesus Christ for over seventeen years and am keenly aware that this bag of gentleness chips needs some mighty works of grace to make it edible for those who are starving for the touch of Christ. If you think about it, feel free to pray for me about this. I’m simply not a consistently gentle man.
Ok, my confession is over. It’s your turn now – what about you? Go back to the verse and share with us which one is your dried-fruit area? Don’t be too proud to get in on the discussion. It helps us crunchy-Christians know that we are not alone.
I struggle in the area of patience. I’m the person who is tailgating you when you are going the speed limit. I’m always in a hurry. I’m an avid gardener. I love propagating new plants. My impatience even show up in the hobby I love. I will plant seeds and when I don’t see leaves emerging I dig them up to see what the problem is further delaying their growth. We are unique as individuals each having a different personality. I really believe our spiritual gifts affect how the fruit of the Spirit manifests itself in our lives. Some fruit appears almost instantly while other fruit comes more gradually as we grow in grace. My predominant spiritual gift is mercy so kindness seems to come easily while other fruits require a constant effort on my part to obey His commands and follow His will for my life. I believe it is a life long process in the Christian walk.
Jeff = I’m not a member of your church but have followed your teachings since Deborah’s and Amy’s accident . (Deborah was so precious) But Patience is my albatros. Several years ago Brother Billy (pastor at Northside) asked me if I was praying for patience and I said yes and he said “STOP”. I was being beseiged with every immanigable trial and trribulation. Patience is still something that God didn’t put any emphasis on when he made me But that very lack of patience makes me a very effective soul administratively. I am a totally “do it now” “Get er done” type of gal…. I have o tolerance for procrastination…… so you see in life for every negative there is a positive – we can’t all be alike – it would be a very boring plantet if we were.
Thank you, Pastor Jeff for all that you have become to me. I follow you every day and look so forward to your words of wisdom. One day I am going to drive to to hear you in person .
Patience. I need it and I need it NOW!
All of them. But especially self-control.
We all now know tgat honest men walk the streets of England! Your humble acknowledgment of your struggles helps your fellow-pastors know we are not alone.
did you ever think why the LORD said man shall not live by bread alone?
If you ever had NY style Pizza you would know.
I’m always look for spiritual justification for mass intake of carbohydrates – thank you, Bruce!
My patience fruit is kind of like that bag of banana chips you bought. Just when I think it’s going to be sweet and/or tasty, it catches me off guard and sometimes is too hard or even worse, the texture of those chips… ugh. Of course, I dare not pray for patience. I just approach the Lord with “show me patience being lived out in those around me.” I have to give kudos to Amy… she has fertilized many of my fruit trees over the years!
I’ve not seen that side of you before so I’m a little surprised. On a side note: am I to understand that you are describing Amy as being full of fertilizer?
i’m probably like a lot of folks… it shows up riding down the road. As far as Amy being full of fertilizer… I hereby give her permission to whack you!
Jeff, again, you are not playing fair (is fairness a by product fruit?!?) There is not only one of these that give me pause. So I will pick (no pun intended) the top two as I rarely follow instructions either! ha. I used to at least think that I had great patience. .. until I had children — and their homework! It is true that while I can be overly understanding with many outside my family, I tend to move far too quickly to “let’s get this done correctly and NOW” when it comes to my family. Then comes the gentleness nonfruit in my life. My gentleness is wanting in most areas but again, my lack of patience fuels the non gentleness like gas on fire and the two are not a pretty combination. Wish I could say that it feels good to get this off my chest but it is only another baby step in my journey of working on obtaining these elusive fruits.
I feel your pain when it comes to being consistent with the kids. They remember our overall demeanor and it helps to shape their own. It’s a difficult day to see the less-than-admirable fruits being transferred from us to our kids. Don’t despair because God can also use our weaknesses to form and fashion our children; we just need to communicate honestly to them when we fail them.