Some friends of mine and I have been looking at the fruit of the Spirit and how God works this fruit in us through the process of struggle and need and learning to depend on God and his love toward and in us.  I’ve somehow had this a bit mixed up most of my life, thinking of the fruit of the Spirit as a list of things I need to strive toward and do and become, rather than a way God displays himself in my weakness.

It has been refreshing to think through each of these characteristics as an aspect of God and how he displays these truths about himself in my life, to me.  In my need.

Listen to what Brennan Manning says in The Ragamuffin Gospel:

Every Christian generation tries to dim the blinding brightness of its meaning because the gospel seems too good to be true.  Jesus says the kingdom of His Father is not a subdivision for the self-righteous nor for those who feel they possess the state secret of salvation.  The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there.  No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle.   These are the sinner-guests invited by Jesus to closeness with Him around the banquet table.  It remains a startling story to those who never understand that the men and women, who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their imperfect existence.  Perhaps it was after meditating on this passage that Morton Kelsey wrote,  “The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.”

Interestingly, this past Sunday as our family was getting into the car from being at the worship service at our church, my son had a pretty major meltdown.  As he was struggling, crying, and exploding, my middle daughter said under her breath, “And we were just in church.”  Since I had overheard her, I couldn’t resist telling her that church was for people who really needed Jesus, people like me.  She proceeded to tell me that she doesn’t need Jesus all that much.  Then my younger daughter joined the conversation,  “I don’t need Jesus all the time.”  Boy, how revealing.   And what an honest expression of where we live most of the time.  Like we can make it on our own.  Like we aren’t quite as needy as we truly are.

Join me as I take a rambling look at the way God shows his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, meekness, and self control through sinners like me, who need, desperately, a real Doctor.

We saw this video of the song “Who am I” by Casting Crowns at Jonathan and David’s karate graduation tonight.  They both got their orange belts after 4 months of karate instruction.  Hurray, hurray!!  There are so many lessons to be learned from the discipline and self control used in karate and jujitsu, and it has been such a positive experience for us.  I just thought I’d share this video that his instructor played tonight at the graduation.  It took awhile for us to figure out that it is people dressed in black wearing white gloves and using black lights to make them glow.  Pretty cool.  Enjoy.