This month in Malaysia we got to teach the Fruits of the Spirit to the children at the kindergarten and on Monday night kid zone. However teaching these we had to take out the biblical references and call these fruit of good character and connect them to a type of fruit. Even though we took out the biblical references God really taught me some hard truths through each of the fruits of the spirit.
I would always open up with:
If you see an apple tree, what do you expect to find on that tree? Apples! Well, when you see someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit, you expect to see what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit. Does anyone know what the fruits of the Spirit is? The fruits of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
(**Everything in bold was roughly used in our lesson)
Love is the easiest. Think of someone who really loves you even when you mess up or make mistakes. God loves us too no matter what, and he loves you even more than your parents do. He can help us love others the way we should.
*****But holy crap can it be hard to love someone that has done you wrong or hurt your feelings and this is where grace and forgiveness comes in. Something I have been learning through teaching the fruits of the spirit this month is that forgiveness is a no strings attached, sometimes one way street. Forgiveness is an everyday struggle to wake up and think to remember to not hold grudges, to not think of the wrongs that people have done to me, and not see people for their faults against me. And holy crap has the Lord shown me the grace He has given me on my trip ups and things I have royally got wrong throughout these last few months through this.
Joy is being very, very happy. It is even being happy when things are not going good. God gives us joy and makes us joyful. We cannot have joy on our own.
******Joy comes the most natural to me. I am a very positive, optimistic person on the regular. However the devil really knows that my joy is a way that he can attack me and bring spiritual warfare on me. I have learned to really reevaluate myself when I am getting down on myself or the situation. This lets me see how much time I have spent with the Lord and how much influence that the devil is having on my life.
Peace. When I normally think of peace I think of no more fighting or no more war. However es this is peace, but peace of the spirit is a bit different. To have peace of the Spirit is to feel a calmness inside and know that all ours sins are forgiven. We receive this peace by reading the Bible, praying, and asking questions.
*******God really has been teaching me how powerful prayer is to bring peace into our lives. There have been some moments that have brought me unrest and I have really just had to pray through them until I know all will be well. On the norm by spirit is full of peace however there have been some moments where I feel the devil is really trying to fight a war.
Patience. “Have you ever been told to be patient” Well this is exactly what this means. Patience that God is talking about is in the little things like waiting to open your Christmas gifts. However it also means to be patient for prayer to be answered and this could take days, weeks, or even years.
*******Funny memory—In Honduras my team gave me feedback that I have so much patience with the children that I taught there for the day…. Haha I do not know where that patience has went. This is something that I need to get back on a stronger path then I am currently.
Kindness can be very easy and then sometimes it can be really hard. It is not easy to be kind to someone who has been mean to you or to a beggar on the street right? When God gives us this gift it is more than just being kind to one another. It is about sending letters to people who may have had a bad day, telling someone that you love them, or bring a small treat to a friend to bring them happiness.
*******Kindness is the next strongest in me. I have just always grown up as a very compassionate, caring person and this has transferred into my adult life. Kindness is such a strength of mine because I love others to treat me with kindness through letter, treats, and words of affirmation. Words of affirmation is my number one love language and you have to have kindness to present this to a person.
Goodness means that God can depend on you to be honest, repent of your sins, and turn away from bad things. We also need to try and act this way towards others through our actions.
*******My perspective of this is why would you try to lie to God because he already knows what you are thinking, doing, or feelings. So with goodness I tend to be brutally honest with the Lord. There are times I have gotten mad at God because I am not happy with the situation that He has placed me in. I would rather be honest and speak out my anger than say a non-sentimental, empty word prayer of, “Thank you Lord for this time of difficulty.”
Faithfulness is keeping your promised, being a loyal friend even when times get tough, being trustworthy and doing the things you said you would do.
*******Faithfulness in God is strong because he has never let me down, but my faith and trust in people has always been something that I have struggled with. This is because I have been let down time and time again by people that I have loved and they have loved me. However God has been really teaching me that we are all human. We all have our faults, our brokenness, and we are all going to let someone down more than once in our lifetime. Trusting someone to be faithful is harder for me to believe than me knowing that I will be faithful to them. So learning to put total faith and trust into any situation as I do my strong faith in Christ.
Gentleness is like holding a brand new baby. For some reason we are afraid they might break if we do not hold them the correct way. This is similar to the gentleness that God is talking about. No matter the situation we are supposed to be gentle and soft spoken. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stick up for ourselves, if someone is doing something you know is wrong you should tell an adult or tell them to stop. Just do all of this in a gentle way like Jesus would do.
*******The whole race has been shaping me in the way that I communicate and how to communicate in an effective way. Before the race I would hold in my feelings, frustrations, and things that needed to be said until they were bubbling over and came out like word vomit or ate me to a point of breaking. Now I have learned where the balance is with what I need to say and how to say it. Yes there is still room for me to grow ad learn in this as well as all the others.
Self-control means to be in control of what we say and do. Just like when a brother or sister bugs you so much you just want to hit them, we know that we have to control ourselves and not hit them. We know we just can’t do whatever we fell like sometimes because it’s not right and we’d be punished.
*******Self-Control is fruit of the spirit that I have and have always landed on the side of caution with most situations since I was old enough to make my own decisions. I have learned that I have an easy ability to judge others that do not have self-control and this is something that God is really showing me this month.
