Yesterday afternoon I shared a few pieces of watermelon with my goats. Oh how they love watermelon! After a sniff or two, they took enormous bites of the sweet, pink fruit and feasted until the juices ran down their beards and splashed on their toes! Fresh fruit in season is such a treat! Sharing the delicious treat with my besties on a beautiful, early Fall day was pure JOY.
We know about the “Fruit of the Spirit” (Gal.5:22). We believe that “fruit of light is good and noble and true” (Eph 5:9). We stay committed to God and His word so that we can BE the fruit and share the love of God through His fruit. There are so many insightful scriptures about fruitfulness that bring joy and encouragement to our hearts.
There are seasons we are called to produce fruit and to harvest – and there are seasons we are called to rest quietly in the presence of the Gardener. We can’t avoid, deny or work our way through difficulties AND maintain a healthy connection to God and his purposes for us. Read that last sentence again, please.
You are familiar with the “disease to please” (the trap of people-pleasing). How about the “addiction to achieve”? Are you familiar with the “compulsion to compete”? These conditions are epidemic in our culture and they leave us feeling overwhelmed and burdened to produce, achieve, compete and complete in order to keep up with the expectations that OTHERS have for us. And it’s killing our spirit and rotting our fruit.
We need to know the expectations, dreams and plans that God has for us – not what others want from us. Sharing wisdom from author and speaker Lisa Bevere: “God speaks to us through dreams and visions, not through Facebook and Twitter.” Amen and Thank you Lisa!
Some seasons bring challenges, disappointments, frustration and sadness. We may not be asked to bear fruit during these seasons. Maybe these seasons are a time to soak in the Word and His beautiful Spirit so that we can refocus our ministries and re-examine our priorities.
Are you with me? The fruit of the Spirit is “joy, peace, patience, self-control, gentleness….” We want to please the Lord – but our human nature also wants to please people, so we are tangled in the web of performance. We yield to the expectations of others instead of or before we seek His Face and direction. We end up burdened and overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations.
We really, truly cannot do it ALL. We cannot be everything to everyone. If we are listening to God’s voice, then we know HE asks us to bear fruit “in season” – which means there are seasons of rest and quiet, and times to restore and renew. Our value in not based on our fruit, or what we produce. His love for us is not determined by anything we do or accomplish. His greatest desire is that we know Him well…because then we get the rest of it “right”.
“That person is like a tree planted by the streams of water, which yields fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers.” Psalm 1:3
