Exhibiting the Fruit of the Spirit

I heard a woman praying several years ago. She was praying for the women of her church to exhibit the fruit of the spirit. She was praying for the women to move in their spiritual gifts and to encourage and support one another. It was a beautiful prayer. She was humble and tearful as she prayed it; calling out to God for these things and asking God to bless their church and their pastor.

I began to look at my own life. I wondered if others saw the fruit of the spirit in my me. Was I kind? Did I show goodness to others? Were my words gentle? Was I as patient as I needed to be? What about joyful? Did I exude peace or cause strife? Did I show faithfulness, or did I let others down or not depend on the Lord in everything?

I knew what the fruits of the spirit were. I had memorized them around fourth grade. Did I ever really experience them though? Had I even asked for them, or just for the evidence of them? Where exactly did they come from and how did we get them? Could they be exhausted? Or was there a never ending supply?

These questions taunted me. I wanted to know if I truly was bearing fruit or if I was just putting my best fruit on exhibit. Was the fruit in my life pretty on the outside, plump and shiny, but bitter on the inside from lack of ripeness?

Have you ever eaten a peach that is not quite ripe? It still tastes like a peach, but there is not much sweetness and it is rather dry. If a peach is perfectly ripe it is sweet and the juice overflows with each bite. I began to think that perhaps the fruit of the spirit in my life was not quite ripe. It looked good and some times it even tasted like the fruit. Somehow it just was missing something. It was a little dry. I could put it in a basket and it would look wonderful. Taken out of the basket, though, even someone who had never had that fruit before would be able to tell that it was not quite right. Something was off, just slightly.

I knew I had to let that fruit ripen in my life. I read Galatians 5 over and over. I watched others I thought must surely have ripened fruit, to discover that some of their fruit was not ripe either. Some of the fruit I was watching was even a little spoiled. I wondered if that was how others looked at the fruit I was exhibiting. It was discouraging at best. I prayed that God would somehow help me exhibit the right kind of fruit of the spirit in my life.

Then it hit me, like an overripe watermelon over my head. I was not asking for the right thing. I was asking to exhibit the fruit, but I was not asking for the Holy Spirit to cultivate of the fruit in my heart. I was trying to grow my own and it was impossible for it to ripen. There is a reason it is called the fruit of the spirit. Without the Holy Spirit it is unattainable. It is not the gift in itself but the by-product of a gift. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit working and allow him to move and to cultivate the gifts that we have been given by God, then the fruit of the spirit begins to blossom and ripen.

That is when the fragrant and sweet juice will overflow from our life and spill over to others. That is when we can stop praying for the Lord to exhibit that fruit in our life and start giving away the abundance of the crop that the Holy Spirit will raise up in our souls. That is when we will be kind and gentle without giving it a thought, when we will go through trials with a song in our hearts because of the joy of the Lord in our lives. That is what will make patience and faithfulness natural to us. That is where peace is found. I began to see the fruit of the spirit evident in my life. I prayed that the Lord would give me a fresh anointing of His Holy Spirit each and every day. And He has.