Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Finding Fruit


“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22) 

It’s all spelled out right there in Paul’s book to the church in Galatia. The Big Nine. Nine characteristics that we can expect to find in the heart filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

The problem had been that I’d been missing one of them: forbearance. Translated as acceptance or tolerance. I’d been measuring high on the “critical” fruit lately. And that’s not one of the Spirit’s fruits. (So is it one of the other guy’s? Or is it just an absence of God’s?) 

Does that mean the Spirit has left me, if I’m missing one of His fruits? Doubtful. But it probably does mean that I’m not allowing Him to be fully at work in my life. Or even more likely, I’m not pouring myself out as an offering in love and service in the world around me in every moment, in every way. 

The more I realized that this was a stumbling block in my life, something that was really keeping me from being the person that God wanted me to be, the more I started examining my life to try to figure out what was missing. 

To many people who know me, I would appear to be the Perfect Christian. And in most areas of my life, God was at the center and my first love. But there was this nagging ache in my heart to be truly all God wanted me to be. The whole nine yards. 

So I started digging through the Scripture, looking up references to the Holy Spirit because I know He’s the key to all of this. And I finally found this: 

“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:1-5) 

Bingo! This was it. This hit the nail on the head. 

There are actually four specific pieces of instructions here. 

1. “Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.” I don’t think Peter’s presuming to tell us to do the work in our hearts that only the Spirit can do. But he’s telling us to cut it out. Stop participating in the ugly talk that goes on behind closed doors. Don’t get on the phone or our e-mails or Facebook and spread the gossip and rumors and rampant criticism that consume so much of our time and tie up our thoughts. Just stop it. 
2. “Crave pure spiritual milk...now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Look for the best stuff. Once you know what the good food tastes like, don’t settle for less. Seek it out. Develop an appetite for nourishment and create a steady diet. Find sources for spiritual food in church worship services, Sunday school classes, and Bible studies. 
3. “As you come to…the living Stone…you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” Recognize your part in the Body of Christ. You are not just a spectator in the church. You and your fellow believers are the Church. Act like it. Join up. Link up. Bond. Invest yourself. Find your place of service and get to work. 
4. “…offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” On our own, none of this would mean anything in our relationship to God. But through Jesus Christ, our sacrifices are acceptable. What we do in Jesus’ name is of eternal value because it matters to God. If He calls us to the work and empowers us to do it, then whatever we give to that ministry matters—not because of whatever rewards we may see, but because it is acceptable to God

As these truths have become realities in my heart and my daily life, I’m finding the Holy Spirit reaching in to work in all areas of my life again. Specifically, as I have put the first instruction into practice and shut down some of the negative discussions I’d been having, I find my “forbearance” growing. Funny what obedience can do for a person. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Finding the Answers


Yesterday I received my new cell phone in the mail. I opened the box and eagerly pulled out the contents. There it was. My beautiful new gadget with its handy little slide-out keyboard, a multitude of tiny little buttons, and a slick new screen.

I got my old cell phone and took out my loaded SIM card (I looked it up…it stands for Subscriber Identity Module) and reloaded it into my new phone. Then I plugged my new phone into the wall so it could get some juice into the rechargeable battery. After it had some time to get revved up, I unplugged it and turned it on. That was about as far as I got.

The phone was an unsolvable puzzle to me. In no way did it resemble my old phone. I had no luck navigating the touch screen, and sliding out the keypad didn’t help at all. I called my teenage son Dylan into the room to see if he could help. (Why are teenagers just so much better with this stuff?) His first words: “All of your stored numbers are gone.”

WHAT??? The representative I had talked to before making my purchase had assured me that all of the numbers would be there when I got my new phone and transferred my SIM card. I asked Dylan if he could tell me how to store new numbers; no, he had no idea how to program this new phone, it was so different from his cell phone. Did he know how to change the ring tone so it would be different from my husband’s phone? Again, no. My frustration built steadily as my efforts to decipher the new phone led nowhere.

So this afternoon, I’m taking my new phone up to the local outlet for our wireless provider and I’m going to have one of the nice salespeople there show me how to use my cell phone. I’m going to ask them my questions and let them show me the map of this new terrain. They know this phone. It came from them.

At some point last night, it occurred to me how very much this situation reflected how we often deal with new circumstances in our lives. We find ourselves in new or difficult settings, in positions we’ve not dealt with before, in trials that may eventually destroy our foundations. And we panic.

So we go to our most convenient problem-solvers. We ask around for advice. We read books. We take classes, attend seminars, hire mentors, do everything within our own power to seek a solution.

Only when we realize that none of these sources provide answers do we finally turn to the one who made us. The one who created life itself. The one to whom we can give all of our confusing, perplexing, confounding problems and trust that He will unravel the knots of life and make straight our paths. We finally come to God and put these matters in His hands and allow Him to have control. And then the answers come and the way is made clear.

So I’m taking my cell phone to the retail store to get some answers. And then I’ll program in my son’s cell phone number and give him a call.

“Make me know Thy ways, O Lord;
Teach me Thy paths,
Lead me in Thy truth and teach me,
For Thou art the God of my salvation;
For Thee I wait all the day.”
(Psalm 25:4-5)

Thursday, February 23, 2012

So


So I’m abundantly enamored with the word so.

Chandler Bing is largely responsible for my overuse of the word. Yes, Matthew Perry’s character on Friends. He was often using the word and placing emphasis on it in the middle of a sentence. As in, “You are so not wearing that jacket again today.” Or, “You are so driving me to that appointment.”

Of course, that wasn’t the only influence that Chandler had on our dialect in the 90s. He was having a heyday with flipping the emphasis around on his words, so sentences would come out, “Could you be more ridiculous?” And “Did I say I liked it?” I’ll find myself throwing that power onto the third or fourth word into my sentences too sometimes, and I know I have Matthew Perry to thank for it.

So back to the word so.

You know what that little word does. So much power in two little letters.

Just imagine you’re a little kid of about five or six years old. You’ve snuck into the kitchen and opened the freezer to find that wonderful mint chocolate chip ice cream that you saw your mom put in there yesterday afternoon. You pull it out and put it on the counter, then reach into the silverware drawer to get a spoon. You’ve just lifted off the top of the ice cream carton and are just about to dip into the creamy lusciousness, when you hear your mother’s footsteps enter the room. And your mother says, “So.”

Later that day, you’ve gotten into an argument with your best friend about whether you’re really getting a new bike for your birthday. Childhood arguments inevitably degenerate at some point into “Are not.” “Am too.” Are not.” “Am too.” “No, you are not.” “Yes, I am so.”

You’re in a busy restaurant. Everyone is bustling about and a low hum fills the air as people talk and clank forks and knives against plates. Waiters and hosts move about as people are served and led to and from tables and the business of eating carries on. Suddenly a hush falls over the room. Someone special has arrived. Heads turn and whispers share the news of the celebrity presence. Well, you know who it is. It’s that big important so-and-so.

Now that I have a son, Christmas morning is a special delight. On Christmas Eve, my husband and I spend time putting out all of the presents that we have gathered for our family and packages that have been carefully and beautifully wrapped. I want that moment when our son walks in on Christmas morning to be perfect. So before I go to bed, I look back at everything and make sure that everything is arranged just so.

You just went to a concert at the park. Was it great? Was it bad? Well, it was so-so.

And so on.

Just a little two-letter word. But it’s so ubiquitous. It’s so versatile, so meaningful, so applicable in so many situations.

So what? So there.