I am on a flight to Minnesota for the USC v. UMinnesota game.
And 45 minutes ago, I was wallowing bitterly. I was looking two rows behind me at one of
my dearest guy friends and he may be one of the luckiest people I know**. He is
sitting next to a bunch of young USC alum who are about to spend the entire
flight laughing up a storm and networking, with a few drinks tossed in on to sugarcoat everything. I am sitting
in a middle seat next to a sleeping dud and a really extremely cranky old man who has been less than kind to me since I
sat down. So I can hear these delightful conversations going on just a mere two
rows behind me, while I am locked in the dungeons. So. I started checking my
heart. Do I really want those free laughs and spiritsor do I want the Spirit.
Crap. Right. So, God is trying to draw close to me, and I am sitting here upset
that my three hours are going to be less exciting than the Lucky one’s. But less
exciting by whose standards? Touche, God. So, I turn on a Tim Keller sermon
entitled “How to Change�, covering Galatians 5:16-18, 22-24. And it rocked my
world. We all know “the fruit of the spirit� passage and just recite it from
our head, so I was thinking what cliché sermon am I about to embark upon. Wrong
again.
Grammatically, I have never looked too closely at the
passage other than to say, yes the predicate does not have agreement with the
subject and verb. The fruit of the spirit is
…the list. Why doesn’t it say “are�? Leave it to Tim Keller to quote Jonathan
Edwards and floor me. When this fruit is developing in our life, it is one,
single fruit– not multiple fruit growing from the same tree. True gentleness
cannot come without also true self-control. True peace cannot come without
humility. Each of the fruit–if truly of the Spirit–develops simultaneously. At
first, I thought I was going to take issue with this, but God used Mr. Keller
to convince me and convict me.
For example, that person who you know is just so gentle, so
non-judgmental, so open to everyone else is potentially that way
because they are not being hard enough on themselves either, they are assuaging
their own conscience. Or. The person who is always at peace. Why are they at
peace? Are they also extremely humble? If not, is that true peace? Or are they
at peace because they have job security, attend a great school, have a great
family? In essence, they are in control. They have everything in their control.
True, spirit-filled peace, though, comes from acknowledging that you have no
control over your life, your circumstances, and you don’t have the answers, but
you have peace in knowing God has all of the answers. Yes, I was convicted of
this…and am convicted of this now, as I have no control over the situation unfolding around me, and until a few minutes ago, my soul was not at peace either.
Another example he gave was of people who have true
integrity and sincerity; they are the same wherever they go, with whomever they
speak. It is not simply that they are extroverted, gifted in conversation, or
really know their passions. It is that their core identity truly is in Christ,
and being a witness of Christ.
Keller calls all of this “symmetry�. Symmetry of the fruit.
You cannot have an abundance of one and very little of the other if it truly is
fruit bearing from the Spirit of God. Because the fruit of the Spirit is.
So, here I am sipping on my free water basking in God’s
undying love for me. And feeling at peace knowing that God has used this flight
to remind me that my sinful nature lusts for things other than Christ. And the
Spirit lusts for Christ (Gal 5:17-18). And thus the internal war being waged inside of me.
And again for this moment, the beauty of the cross centers me on my true Love.
And the peace I feel at this moment is not from having control over this
situation, but from letting God in this moment grow my self-control in Him. Oh happy day.
**examples of this luckiness: He won a mini-cooper on the
Price is Right. Last Spring we went to Vegas, he won $400.00 while I lost a
tooth (true story). Last year we went to Chicago for the Notre Dame v. USC
game–He flew first class.Today, just another shiny example.
