Manifesting the good stuff

The fruit of the Spirit is not circumstantial!

I woke up in the early hours with these words in my mind a little while ago. As I unpacked this statement, I saw it was both wonderful news, but at the same time quite a challenge.

The point is, if we have the Holy Spirit residing in us, then we have access to all His fruit, no matter what is going on in our lives or the world around us. We can have it all, in abundance! However, so often this is not our experience. We struggle with the absence of one or more aspects of the fruit and can feel like we just have to work harder to get there.

What if it is not about working harder?

What if it is more about asking the right questions?

If we are not experiencing the fruit of Holy Spirit, asking the question “Why not?” “What is blocking their flow in, through and out of us?” may be more helpful.

It is valuable to note that the fruit, as written in Galatians 5:22-23, is actually in the singular form.

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (or humility), self control.”

That means that they come together as a package - there is only one fruit, but there are different manifestations. From this perspective, I would like to share some thoughts on how we might deal with blockages we are experiencing with facets of this fruit.

To begin, if I am having difficulty receiving God’s love for me, I might ask the question, “Is there a lie I am believing about myself, God?” Or, “is there a lie I am believing about you, Lord?” “Is there something I need to repent of?” (Not because God withholds His love, but because these things become a barrier between us and Him.) (Later, in the podcast, there will be an opportunity to follow through on each of these areas.)

If I am having difficulty loving other people, asking the question, “Who do I need to forgive?” can open up the door to experiencing God’s love if I am prepared to go through the process of actually doing the work of forgiveness. This is not necessarily reconciliation, but it is about giving up my “right” for retribution, retaliation or vengeance.

In this time, I know that it can be very easy to lose our joy. In fact, this is one I have wrestled with for years. How can I be joyful when “x”, “y” and “z” are not how they should be? I believe there are two aspects to this. The first is to ask God what beliefs, expectations or even lies am I holding on to about my circumstances that are unhelpful? (i.e. I can only be happy when or if…) The second is to ask Him to show you His perspective on what is going on and what He is doing. Even in the last couple of days, I have caught a whiff of His excitement and joy about what He is up to that I believe is about to burst in on the scene. However, we won’t see it if we are focussed on the wrong things, if our vision is clouded or distorted.

A lack of peace can be related back to a lack in our trust in God, in who He is. A few years back, God showed me that rest and trust correlate - that is, where I do not experience rest is an indicator of an area where I don’t trust Him. I’m sure many of us can see numbers of ways in which we need to grow, need an “upgrade” in learning to trust and rest in Him in some area.

This all leads back to the shalom peace of God, which is about healing, wholeness, restitution and integrity to name a few. If these are all in alignment, then we are at rest, at peace. For those areas you become aware of where you are struggling to trust God, ask Him to show you what healing needs to occur so your heart can trust Him more, or ask Him to show you a glimpse of what He sees, or to give you a key to help you move into greater trust in Him around this issue.

As we move through the fruit manifestations from here, I would suggest the blockages really link back to these three areas, but most particularly love - how we give and receive love is all impacted by our beliefs about ourselves and others. Our impatience is often a lack of seeing the other through God’s loving eyes; unkindness maybe the same, or could relate to a measure, a judgement we also use on ourselves, which could expose our inability to love ourselves. We could make similar observations about the other areas. If we are struggling to manifest that part of the fruit, there is probably something unresolved in how we see ourselves and others that we need to bring to Father God for healing and transformation, as “we are being changed into his very image, from one degree of glory to the next” (1 Cor 3:18, CJB).

The final facet listed is self-control. Recently, as I was asking God for part of the key to what keeps people stuck in unhealthy spaces when they have had healing and received freedom in many areas, He gave me the word “self-discipline”, which made sense. If we want to change, if we want the atmosphere around and within us to be different, we can’t just expect to keep doing the same things, thinking the same things, focussing on the same things and expecting different outcomes.

If we want to feel different, we have to exercise some self-discipline, some self-control over our thought life and what information and input we fill ourselves with. In a time when many of us have information overload, stepping back and giving ourselves space and time away from the world and all its struggles is vitally important to our emotional and spiritual well being. If we master this, then we will no longer be tossed around by our changing circumstances, but will be found secure, anchored in God. However, we can’t do it alone. We must partner with Holy Spirit. And sometimes, having an accountability partner, some one we give permission to pull us up when our conversation, thoughts or behaviour strays down unhelpful paths can give us that extra boost toward changing our habits.

If you would like to pray through some of these issues, you will find a segment toward the end of the podcast where you can do so. If you still find yourself stuck after that, you are welcome to connect with me via the contact page for information about some further prayer.

Please encourage us all by sharing in the comments anything God is shifting in your life through this process.

Backing track CALM - Deep Instrumental worship (No copyright music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzO5oe8hAaI

Be careful what you wish for...

If you could be transported back in time to be with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing what He was about to go through, and you could pray with Him, what do you think you might pray?

Would you pray for His release, for His escape, for His safety or for His life to be spared? 

During our Good Friday service, two very different prayers got me thinking.

In praying for our world, we also prayed for a cessation of the violent acts, for God to intervene and prevent those thinking of further terrorism from implementing what was planned. 

As we reflected on Jesus' last hours, and His prayer in the Garden, I thought about the fact that we so often pray for what we would like to see, rather than God's purpose and will coming to fruition. If the disciples had had any real inkling of what Jesus was about to undergo, I wonder whether they would have been praying that God would prevent it, that God would change the outcome. What would have happened if they had? Would Jesus have died? Would the Christian faith as we know it exist today?

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He included the words

"Your will be done".

It is so difficult for us to see what this might look like, because we would like it to look like a 'good' outcome for us here, right now. We would like to see our will be done. And this generally means, my comfort, the comfort of my loved ones, a lack of difficulty for any of us immediately. Our prayers often boil down to "Please God, make everything nice again, for me and mine, and please do it now!" 

The problem is, if God answers those prayers, are we actually missing out on greater blessings? Are we actually missing out on what God wanted to show us, to teach us, to grow in us by taking the 'easy way'? 

Most of us know about the dangerous prayer of asking for patience: you generally get even more opportunities to practice! How many more circumstances and situations does God place before us to move us into better, more helpful, more Christlike behaviours and opportunities to demonstrate His love? And how often do we ask to be excused from those opportunities?

The problem is, we rarely know, much less understand the long term ramifications of so much we long for. Even though we might ask to be relieved from having  to go through difficulties, how do we know that our present trials are not preparing us to cope with other future challenges, not to mention the impact our experience has on other circumstances around us? The threads are all interwoven, and each impacts the other.

Personally, I have been learning a deeper way to pray for sometime now. Much of it involves the difficult task of listening, the difficult task of laying down my will, my desire, my wants, my comfort, and waiting on God to hear what He wants to do in me and through me. It is not easy. It takes time, and it takes honesty and transparency with God.

Often I find it is more helpful to be honest about my feelings and what I want before I start to seek His way. I have to get that out of the way, otherwise self keeps popping its head up again, distracting me, causing me to respond out of my emotions again. When I pull out my stuff, my emotional response first and look at it with God, through His eyes, it becomes easier to lay it down and release it to Him. Then I am (more) ready to go His way, to see His way.

Jesus' prayer in the Garden was like this: "God, I really don't want to go through this, I am really struggling", and maybe even "I'm so scared", but never-the-less, "not My will, but Your's be done".

Underlying all our struggles with prayer is a question of trust. Do we pray because we think God needs some help working out the best way forward for us and His world, or do we pray because we want to partner with Him in what He is already doing really well without our help?