Dissecting the Fruit

One of my co-workers once told me that we have to 'slow down in order to speed up'. This saying means that sometimes the best way to most efficiently accomplish a goal is to simply stop, slow down and assess where you are currently at so that you can accurately plan for future actions. Planning out the next steps will help to actually make you more effectively complete the upcoming task in a quick manner.

Just as we have to slow down in our physical actions to be the most effective, we also need slow down in our study of God's Word. I know there have been times when I quickly skim through a scripture, assuming I already know what it says, only to come back at a later time and think 'dang, how did I miss that'. How many insights are you missing when studying God's Word simply because you aren't taking the time to slow down so that you can fully understand what God is speaking to you about?

I experienced this 'uh-oh' moment when I re-read Galatians 5:22-23.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

When I first (and multiple times after) read this passage, I made the word 'fruit' plural. You might ask how that makes a big difference. Well the way I initially interpreted these scriptures was that God was letting us know that the fruit, and/or by-product, of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the increase of our character in one of these attributes. But when I slowed down and re-read this text recently, I realized that God is telling us that all of these attributes are parts of the same fruit. This means that we should be growing in all nine of these areas as our relationship with God grows, not just focusing on one or two. Just like a piece of fruit is made up of several parts, each part is critical to the development of a healthy and whole piece of fruit. For instance, if the pericarp (the all-encompassing wall, or walls, of the fruit) is not fully intact, the insides of the fruit, the protection of the seed can be compromised and result in off-tasting fruit or a wasted seed. How can we be fruitful (Genesis 1:28) and multiply the earth if our seed is wasted?

Let's look at the attributes that God is telling us we should be developing as we grow closer to the Holy Spirit.

Looking at the attributes, we can see that a lot of them piggyback off each other (i.e. to display goodness (conformity to a standard of right), we need to also be displaying gentleness (morally excellent in character or demeanor). While we will often can be stronger in certain characteristics than others, God is still asking us to strive to be better in each of them every day. The better I get at temperance (self-control), the better I will be at longsuffering (patience/endurance) and the more peace I will have in my life.

I encourage each of us today to pray for the Holy Spirit to change our hearts to desire to both outwardly and inwardly display all nine attributes. That's the beauty of Christianity. God isn't expecting us to have it all together but He has given us the resources in order to continually grow in Him... we can ask (Luke 11:13; 17:5; Romans 8:26).