Being fruity

Fruit is yummy. It is delicious, sweet, good for you, juicy and pretty. I'm glad Paul picked it (pun intended) to use as an illustration of what the Spirit should look like at work in our lives.

As I mentioned yesterday, fruit is necessary. Those vitamins don't come in French fries and hamburgers or tacos and Chinese food.

That's quite a disgusting combination, actually.

Just eating one orange made me feel better. And it was because I hadn't had one in a long time. It's easy to settle for the "junk food" of our life - whatever we can grab, whatever is quick, whatever we can shove down our throats as fast as we can. Food, I mean. But this metaphor applies to the "things" we put our trust in: music, TV shows, other people, food (literally), work - whatever we can distract ourselves with.

Thinking about the fruit of the Spirit all at once can admittedly be a mouthful. There are some big difficult words that are not easy to tackle individually, let alone among others:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." - Galatians 5:22

In other words, you can't go wrong with these things. Sure, you can make mistakes, but when it all comes back to these traits and God is glorified, we can rest assured that our fruit is ripe.

Last spring, I led a small group for middle school girls at my church. We went through different studies and worked on applying Scripture to our everyday lives. Frankly, I learned a lot from it myself. The fruit of the Spirit kept coming back to me. We broke it down and focused on one "fruit" each week. It's so hard to be loving, joyful, full of peace, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and have self-control at any given time. This summer and spring was no piece of cake for me myself. But looking at how I could take a bite out of these fruit, if only one or a few at a time on occasion, made me realize a mere glimpse of how God intended for our lives to be lived out.

So, this crazy week packed with Homecoming events at school amidst homework and relationships and work-work, I'm going to try to be some of these fruit. And also eat some along the way.

Fruity-ish snacks I enjoy:

1. Snapple peach tea
2. "Phineas and Ferb" fruit snacks
3. Special K strawberries and cream cereal bars
4. Blueberry muffins
5. Chocolate-covered strawberries
6. Peaches and cream oatmeal
7. Grape soda
8. Cranberry Splash Sierra Mist
9. Apple cider
10. Pineapple pizza

I thought it would be lame if I had a list of my favorite actual fruits (which I do actually have. Favorite fruits, I mean.) For real - who does that?