Fertile Ground

The image of the fruit of the Spirit  (Galatians 5:22-23) is fertile ground for pondering and rumination.  Fruit does not just show up on the vine, or on the tree, one day.  Instead, it comes slowly.  There is ample evidence that something is changing, but the mature fruit does not simply show up one morning like the sunrise on the eastern horizon.  To expect our hearts to suddenly be loving, and joyful, and peaceful, and patient is to expect what should not be expected.     

One of the things learned through observation here on the farm during these retirement years is the way fruit begins as small as a mustard seed and is transformed daily toward ripened maturity.  Surely, this is creation's way of voicing what the Apostle Paul was lifting up for us to see when he wrote about the fruit of the Spirit.  It is also the way Jesus spoke about spiritual things as he taught about the Kingdom of God being present in the world in what is small and invisible.    

As much as we might like to think differently, we do not really become loving and kind overnight.  Neither do become patient and faithful without the painful process of growing and becoming.  Too much of today's spirituality preaches a "ask for it and get it" mentality instead of understanding that what begins in our hearts is nurtured and given life by the Holy Spirit until it becomes something that truly enables the Spirit of Jesus to be seen in us.  The spiritual fruit of the Spirit does not magically show up one day in our life, but is ever becoming in us as it grows toward maturity