Tag: fruit of the Spirit

Glowing in the Dark

As Christians, what does it take for us to glow in the dark?

My husband and I have a funny habit of losing the remote control to our tv almost every night! After Casey selects a tv show, he will usually lay the remote on his chest and then drift off to sleep. Right before he falls all the way asleep, he will rouse just enough to either hand me the remote or turn off the tv himself. If the remote has moved at all and he cannot find it quickly, he will ask me where I put it. Of course, I’m usually half asleep myself, so I grumpily will say some snide remark like, “Wherever you put it,” or “You had it last.” Then we both will spend a few minutes groping all over the covers trying to find the remote. By then, one or both of us is fully awake again, and now we have to choose another show to put us to sleep. And the ritual will start all over again. The problem with our remote control is that it is white, and our comforter is mostly white, so it blends in very easily. Thus, my brilliant Christmas present gift to us both this year was a glow-in-the-dark remote control cover. Problem solved…or so I thought.

At first, it seemed to be just what we needed. When the lights are on, it is a bright blue that contrasts well with our comforter. Then once the lights are off, it glows a very subtle blue–not enough to be irritating, but just enough to be visible in the dark. But there is one problem with glow-in-the-dark items, they only glow when they have had enough exposure to the light. So if the lights in our bedroom have not been on much before bedtime, the remote will barely glow. Ugh.

Last night, as I struggled once again to find the remote and pondered this aspect of glow-in-the-dark objects, it occurred to me that the Christian’s journey is much like this. We are not a self-sustaining source of light. We derive our light from God. When we are living in His light, abiding in Him, breathing Him in, absorbing all He has to offer, then we are able to glow brightly even in the darkest moments. But when we become so distracted that we fail to spend time with Him in prayer or study His Word, then our light often dims or fades altogether. When the dark comes–those difficult situations or challenges that test or tempt us–we may find that we do not shine as brightly as we had hoped we would.

I know this is definitely true in my life. Almost without fail, if I start to notice that impatience or anger are getting the best of me or I’m starting to become overly depressed or worried, I will recognize that I also am not prioritizing my time with the Lord during that period of time. Usually, the times when my spiritual “fruit” is not looking very tasty coincide with the periods when I am not abiding in Christ. There is a direct relationship between the amount of time I spend with the Lord and the amount of “glowing” I do in my relationships with others. 

Confession time…these last few weeks have been a time when I have not been spending as much time in prayer and study…and it shows! I noticed that I have not been writing as much recently, but I thought it was just the distraction of Christmas festivities. Yet, even when I had free time, I was not inspired to write anything. Then I realized a simple truth–it is very hard to pour out into others when I am not filling myself first. So I got back into God’s Word and spent some time in prayer. Almost immediately, my head was flooded with ideas of encouragement and wisdom I wanted to share with others. As I saturated myself with the light of Jesus, I became inspired, motivated, and more able to spread that light to others.

So the next time you find your light dimming or your glow fading, when you seem to lack enthusiasm for your Christian mission, when you’re finding it hard to produce spiritual “fruit,” or when the darkness seems to be overwhelming you, stop and take notice of how much true light you are letting into your life. Ask yourself, “Am I exposing myself to enough light that I can glow in the dark?”

Friends, I pray you seek Jesus daily and spend ample time soaking up His heavenly rays. Allow Jesus to flood your soul with so much light that you cannot help but glow in the dark!

False Joy

Thoughts as I read from Nice: Why We Love to Be Liked and How God Calls Us to More by Sharon Hodde Miller (pg 41)…

“The thing that unmasks our joy and reveals its true quality is the hammering power of a storm…”

As I read this section, at first my chest puffed a bit with a little bit of pride–Hey, go me! I don’t demonstrate false joy! [The book gave a list of ways we might display false joy.] “Ever-cheerful face”–that’s not me. I actually let people see my sadness sometimes. Joy being dependent on our income–nope. I think I still am joyful even when we don’t have much money, because face it, we never have much money! Joy being dependent on our health–that’s not me. I’ve had skin cancer, endometriosis and ovarian cysts, terrible back pains, a hysterectomy at 38 and that didn’t steal my joy. I’m looking pretty good so far. Then I read that next sentence…”Storms expose exactly what our joy is standing on.”

I stopped and pondered this statement. I asked myself, “What causes my joy to crumble?”, and then God slapped me in the face with it. I could see exactly what my joy was standing on (and it wasn’t the solid rock of Jesus). You see, my joy is standing on very unstable ground–the daily feedback I get from my immediate family, especially my husband and oldest son. Nothing can steal my joy quicker than one of them expressing anger or disappointment in me. I can have a busy, hard, and exhausting day, filled with chaos and messiness and still be peaceful and joyful at the end of it. But a negative word from one of my family, and it’s all over. Until today, I never realized how much I allowed my family’s opinion of me to dictate my own feelings. And that realization shook me and humbled me. 

“True joy is attractive and influential, not because of our stiff upper lip but because the fruit of the Spirit can flourish in any climate, sunshine or rain!”  If my joy can be shaken so easily by a few unkind words from a hormonal teenager or a sleep-deprived husband, then what kind of joy is it really? As I’m continuing through this book and looking deeper at my “niceness”, I’m realizing that the whole point is in identifying the source and motivation of our beautiful qualities. Abiding in Jesus, getting my self-worth from God’s view of me, asking the Holy Spirit to guide every word and action, and getting strength from God’s power rather than my own abilities–that’s really what this is about. If I’m doing these things, the rest will fall into place.

My sister reminded me today, God wants us to bring our fish and loaves to him, as meager as they may be, and let Him work a miracle with it. May I always remember this truth…he doesn’t want me to offer them to the world but rather to Him. If I’m keeping that in mind, that everything I do is offered to God first and then to people, then the fruit that’s produced will never be false fruit. It will always be beautiful and genuine and life-giving.

Our God-Shaped Holes

We are always our worst critics and so often we overlook the beauty in ourselves that is so obvious to others. I think sometimes we fear that if we aren’t looking very good right now, if we can’t see the “fruit” in our lives, then we must be doing something wrong, that we are far from him. Have any of you ever looked at a rose bush that has just been pruned? It looks terrible. To the inexperienced person, you would see a pruned rose bush and walk right on by thinking, “That thing looks dead!” But a true gardener knows that it’s just in a certain season of life and it’s been perfectly prepared to produce even more beautiful roses when it’s time. An experienced gardener knows that pruning a plant allows nutrients to go right to the spots that need it. John 15: 1-2 says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

I remember a few years ago when it was a time of my life I had just started home schooling my kids and I was being handed a large dose of humility. Even after years of teaching experience and a master’s in education, I was at my wit’s end. Nothing seemed to be working. I couldn’t get my kids to do their work and they didn’t seem to be enjoying things the way I had hoped. I also was having difficulty controlling my anger at my children. I was praying daily for the ability to love my children and be a good parent, and I felt I was failing miserably. At the time, I was going through the study of Esther with my sister.  And as I went through the study, I felt my eyes were being opened to all the nastiness that I had inside. I felt that nothing beautiful was being produced in me. I felt very far away from being anything like Esther, not even close to the Godly woman I wanted to be. I truly felt like I was being pruned and I was looking absolutely wretched. One day I shared this with my sister. She looked at me and said, “Oh no, Jenn. Just the opposite. I am seeing you just blossom,” and she shared with me how she thought I was doing a great job as a parent and she was seeing so much growth in me. You see, the pruning I was experiencing WAS producing beautiful fruit, but it just didn’t feel like it at the time…. You may not always feel it or recognize it, but you, too, bear beautiful fruit.

Yet we still often compare ourselves to others and pick ourselves apart, finding every teeny tiny flaw. We have a tendency to start trying to figure out what we need to do to fill the gap, what we need to change, what steps we must take to FIX THIS PROBLEM. But the truth is, these holes in our beautiful fruit, these huge gaps that we see on the tree branch where there just doesn’t seem to be anything good hanging around–there is nothing WE can do to fill those gaps. You might say those holes, those gaps, are God-shaped. The problem is we need God. I know it seems simple, but it’s true.

Let me tell you a story. On one Saturday morning, my sisters and I joined each other for coffee at Mom’s house. My sisters noticed throughout our conversation that I was not my usual self. Finally, they prodded a little, and I revealed what was troubling me. I felt an overwhelming burden that I had to take care of everyone in my life and didn’t feel I could have a rest. I explained how I wasn’t sleeping well because I was having my son sleep in my room every night. At the time, he had been having seizures and had recently been care-flighted to Dallas after a series of three life-threatening ones. I also shared with them about how I had laid my head down for just a few minutes to take a nap, and my son had run out in the street. I was the sole teacher in charge of my 3 kids’ education, the doctor in charge of giving everyone their various morning and evening medicines (including the very important seizure medicine), the alarm clock that helped wake my husband while he adapted to his crazy shift-work schedule, the nutritionist who attempted to provide everyone good food as much as possible, and so forth. You get the picture. From my perspective, I was a woman treading water and holding everyone else’s head above water. If I took a moment of a break, it felt as if they would all sink. I felt so responsible for everyone and so tired. I felt weak and desperate, seeing so much I needed to do, so many changes I needed to make in my life, wishing I could be a different person and manage everything better, and yet so incapable of doing anything about it. I was seeing all those holes in my life and believing it was all my job to fill them!

My sisters listened and comforted me. Then in a very clarifying moment for me, one of my sisters said, “Jennifer, you’re forgetting one very important thing—God. Even when you took a nap, God protected your son from getting hurt in the street. Even when your son stopped breathing during his seizures, God kept him alive.” She continued to remind me that ultimately I am not the one who protects my family anyway; it’s God. I had not realized I was making myself too important and not recognizing God’s awesome power and protection in my life. I slept so peacefully that night, trusting God to fill the holes in my abilities and resting in His strength. When we are so empty, we have to allow God to fill us up.

Yes, it’s wonderful to evaluate yourself and take stock of where you need to improve. Yes, it’s only right that we recognize God’s purpose for us in this life and work toward fulfilling it. Yes, it’s great to strive toward being an example of every single aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit. But if we get to a place where we’re feeling overwhelmed by being a “good” Christian, by doing all the right things, then we’re missing the point. God tells us “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” When we feel we’re treading water, maybe we need to realize we’re not in as deep of water as we thought and just put our feet down and stand on God, the solid rock underneath our feet. After all, He is the one holding everyone up, not us. At the end of the day, we must simply rest in Him and praise him for all the mighty works He does in spite of all our failed attempts.