2022_03_11 Insight Post- Emma Keeton

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Galatians 5:22-23

It’s about this time of year that I start planning what’s going to be in my garden. Motivated by the cost of annual plants, I go to the store and stare at the seed packets for far too long. I dream of how lovely each plant will look in the space I have. Unfortunately, my imaginary Pinterest garden does not match up to what’s outside my window come August. I’m not that good of a gardener. Although I learn tips each year, it really is a work in progress. My dreams of an ‘insta-garden’ are just not reality.

This is also true of spiritual growth. When I read about the fruits of the spirit I long to live out love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I not only want them, I’d like them now! Yet it is with a lifetime of following the Lord where this fruit of the Holy Spirit will grow in me. God is working in each one of us, giving us opportunities to grow all the time. Every time we recognize our sin and ask God to transform us allows for growth of Spiritual fruit.

So don’t be weary or disheartened. Today, trust what the Lord is doing in you.

Prayer by Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the
end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress, that it is made by passing through some stages of instability, and that may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time-that is to say, grace- and circumstances acting on your own good will will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually
forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.