I’ve been learning a lot about how God shows up in my life. I think it’s easy to complain about how I’m not seeing results of my walk with God because I’m not seeing angels fly down and hand deliver a message to me or walking on water. But I think God shows us the fruit of his presence in a lot of ways.
I’ve seen God show up in some amazing ways here in Nicaragua. All thirty-four people of my squad and I have been together this month. We’ve been splitting up into two groups every day and driving to different villages. We’ve done door to door ministry and gone to heaps of schools talking about drugs and alcohol. I’ve never wanted a D.A.R.E. shirt so badly in life.
I’ve been able to see God heal people here too. One of our days praying for the sick, my team got to pray for a woman who had been having pain in her knee and wasn’t able to bend it. After we prayed for her she was swinging it as casually as she was dealing with the fact that her leg had been healed. When we were back and told the rest of our group what had happened, my squad leader Kate said we should pray for our squad leader Molly Fae’s wrist that had been sprained and wrapped up the entire time we had been in Nicaragua. She took off the brace and we prayed for her. Then my arm hurt because she punched with her newly healed wrist in an act of celebration.
God also showed me what fruit looked like with, well, fruit. We were out playing with children at a park one day and I wanted to play catch with the kids there. The problem was I didn’t have a ball. However, I saw a kid about twelve years old playing catch with a piece of fruit. I felt drawn to this kid because he was holding his younger brother on his hip and still playing. It reminded me of how I used to be attached to my brother Lee’s side and it wouldn’t slow him down. I looked around a ditch and asked God for two pieces of fruit to play with. I only found one but decided to go play anyway. Slowly kids started to join the circle. The fruit started to break and I gestured that we needed more fruit. One of the kids yelled at me to follow him. Soon the Nicaraguan lost boys and I were running down the road and stopped at another ditch. I didn’t know what I was looking at at first, but then I realized I was looking at upwards of fifty of these fruits all along the ground. I was beaming and told the lost boys I wanted to take all of them back. Our little game of catch exploded and we had tons of kids tossing fruit to one another.
It’s easy to look at these stories and see where God showed up and where fruit is. What I’m learning is that the Lord shows up just as much when I show love, joy, peace, and patience. The fruit of the spirit is what I’m learning to celebrate just as much as when someone is healed or when God provides actual fruit for me.
