I don't know why I'm awake right now. This is my sleep time. I am not a night owl. But usually when God has something He wants to say to me, He wakes me up in the middle of the night because He knows there is nothing from the outside world that can distract me. Ok God I'm listening.
Fruit.
Love joy peace patience goodness kindness gentleness faithfulness self control
Have you ever bought a bag of apples or a peck or bushel of apples and unknowingly there was a bad one near the middle and you waited a couple days and bam, a lot of the apples were ruined because if that bad one? I'll tell you, that just grosses me out. Bad fruit.
I'll never forget thinking I had 1.5 of the fruit of the spirit.
Now I know how important they all are and growing in them. I have them, because Jesus is in me. It's like something I never experienced. It's made me nicer, my motives pure, but when someone questions them... I'm taken back. And I start to wonder about my own heart. Where my motives pure? Was it love that motivated me?
I don't know about you, I can only speak for myself, I cannot fake it Til I make it anymore. God put a big stop to that. I've always kind of been one of those people who carried their emotions on their sleeves, but now, if I'm being nice, it's based on love and joy. There is no faking it. If someone hurts me or is mean, and I reply in love, there isn't any fake about it. I'm newly wired that way. It's a new thing. And quite frankly it's so weird to me. This is quite a concept :)
But let me say this, if I'm struggling, there isn't any faking through that any longer. I walk in forgiveness for myself and others. If I struggle I move forward, I read, I study, I pray, I cry, I do hard word work. In other words, I water the fruit no matter how high the water bill is, because its worth it. If I don't water my garden, no fruit.
Being fake is like one apple that will truly ruin my whole bunch (or the other 8). Being fake takes out love from the git-go. And it says in 1 Corinthians 13, if we have not love, we have nothing. So Tina Turner, love has everything to do with it. And what would be the point in that?
This week is the lesson in patience. It's not about me. The absence of patience is pride. Bleck. I must be faithful in my walk, despite my circumstances, as my garden grows, so does my love for others, and for God.
Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Goodness
Kindness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self control
Seeking no spoilage this week.
I think now I can go back to sleep.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV)
Comments