Bearing Fruit/Gifts of the Spirit

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. Galatians 5:22-23. Genie does some beautiful cross stitch. She sewed this verse in 1982, a decade after we married, and four years after I was baptized. And yet, I did not aspire to these attributes for many years.

I never gave the verse much credence. For most of my life, those terms would not be how people would have described me. In my most generous moments, they are not terms I would have used to describe myself. 

I learned from my father to be brash, impatient, loud, hard-charging, not shy about anything, not gentle in any way. I was trying to prove myself, and those adjectives in Galatians are not the way to make a name for yourself in the business world. I mostly thought the verse a quaint saying, and for decades it got no traction. The one that deeply resonated was a yearning for peace in my life.

1982 was also the year I began to meditate. It took years for this practice to become a regular routine. Slowly, over time, my hard heart began to soften and melt. In time, a grateful heart emerged, which was a huge milestone in my spiritual journey. I began to discover my gifts. And my own father wound developed into a passion and calling to mentor the next generation, allowing them to access the wisdom from the journey that their fraught relationship with fathers had kept them from seeing.

I see things differently now. As I committed to discipleship after selling the business, I began a more intentional focus on prayer, meditation, and reading the Bible. As more of the Scripture lodged in me, I began to see the fruit of the Spirit throughout Scripture. 

As I make more space in my life to listen for God, I aspire to be shaped more and more into the mind of Christ. As such, the verse in Galatians has become very important for me. I now yearn for that fruit to fall from my tree. (I am a Burch, after all.) I yearn for people to see the Spirit’s work in my life, and to see my work bear fruit.

It is not this fruit that makes me acceptable to God. It is the fruit that grows out of my gratitude for what He’s done. Want to see the Spirit around you? Look for the fruit. I have spent 25 years living into my calling, equaling the 25 years I spent in my first career in the family business. It has not been nearly as profitable, but tremendously more fruitful.

Here are three questions that will give you a hint of what is yours to do. What are your spiritual gifts? What is the intersection of your passion and your gifts? What is the intersection of your deepest desire and the world’s great need?

Find more about discerning your Calling here. Curious about spiritual gifts? Find an online Spiritual Gifts assessment here.

Scripture

Without human receptiveness and faithfulness, God’s gifts are wasted.

RENOVARE Bible notes on Judges 13

Blessed in the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and it is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Matthew 2:8

Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:18-20

As for the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance. 

Luke 8:15

If we are willing to respond to the opportunities God places in our path, instead of saying we are not good enough; if we are able to respond to the nudges from God’s Word and Spirit, rather than make excuses based on our negative self-evaluation; if we are stubborn enough to persevere in following Christ despite our mistakes—then God, through us, can carve a furrow through this earth’s murky waters and leave a shimmering residue of hope and faith in our wake. 

RENOVARE Bible notes on Luke 9:20

Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.

John 7:38

Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 

John 15:2

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

Romans 12:6

Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by the one and same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 

1 Corinthians 12:4-12

Often charisma outruns character. The danger is our gifts will take us to places where our character cannot keep us. We will reap what we sow. If we insist on replacing God with the idols of wealth, pleasure or fame, then, we can expect to experience discontent with our spiritual life, dysfunction in our family life, and disharmony in our public life.

The only wise course is to put God first, loving Him with all our heart, all our soul, all of our mind, and all of our strength. (Deut 6:5, Mark 12:30) Our heart towards the poor is among the surest tests of whether Christ is being formed within us. To “remember the poor” is a primary way to practice simplicity, giving, and service, practices fundamental to spiritual formation.

RENOVARE Bible notes on Galatians 2

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness.

Galatians 5:22-23. The fruit of the Spirit is the outward evidence of the inward reality of a heart “abiding” in Christ. RENOVARE Bible notes on Galatians 5:22

Works are to faith as exhaling is to inhaling. They complete the gift of salvation. Good works are not what we do to win salvation; they are what we do to demonstrate and enjoy it.

RENOVARE Bible notes on Ephesians 2:10

The world is quite right in assuming that if the way of Christ is true and life-giving, it ought to be able to look at our lives and see that way personified and what we do and say.

RENOVARE Bible notes on Titus

Ancient Writings

Contemplation and Action: The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great or good if the inward is small or of little worth.  The inward work always includes in itself all size, all breadth and all length.

Meister Eckhart 

If virtue is true virtue, its source is God. 

St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, trans Mirabai Starr p. 41

Modern Writings

The best thing I can give to others is to liberate myself from the common delusions and be, for myself and for others, free. Then grace can work in and through me for everyone.

Thomas Merton, A Year with Thomas Merton, p. 176

There is in all things an exhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out of me from unseen roots of all created being. 

Thomas Merton, Helen Exley, And Wisdom Comes Quietly

You are called to a deep interior life, perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others.

Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain

A pitfall of spiritual gifts is related to gift projection. Christian Schwarz suggests that, “Every Christian tends to project his or her gifts onto others” (p. 97). For example, it could be easy for those with a specific gift not to understand why others do not show the same gift.

However, while a certain gift may come naturally to some (because it has been bestowed upon them by the Holy Spirit), those without that gift will not feel the same. Schwarz warns that the phenomenon of gift projection is particularly common in the area of evangelism. Those blessed with this gift may say, “God has not given me a special gift; I’m just doing what every good Christian should do!” However, this causes guilt among those not blessed with this gift.

Remember: you can only use the gifts which have been given to you by the Holy Spirit. Additionally, some people simply do what they want (that is, using gifts that they “wish” they had) instead of diving deep to find out in what areas they are gifted. “‘Gift-oriented ministry means allowing God to determine when and where He wants to use us” 

(Schwarz, 2001, p. 98). Allison Sauceda, quoting Christian Swartz, Natural Church Development, p. 97, 98

Seven gifts of the Spirit: Counsel, prudence, fortitude, reverence, wisdom, understanding, knowledge.

Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God, p. 74

We Are Called To Be Fruitful. You have to be really aware of the difference between fruitfulness and success because the world is always talking to you about your success. Society keeps asking you: “Show me your trophies. Show me, how many books have you written? Show me, how many games did you win?” And there is nothing wrong with any of that. I am saying that finally that’s not the question.

The question is: “Are you going to bear fruit?” And the amazing thing is that our fruitfulness comes out of our vulnerability and not just out of our power. Actually it comes out of our powerlessness. If the ground wants to be fruitful, you have to break it open a little bit. The hard ground cannot bear fruit; it has to be raked open. And the mystery is that our illness and our weakness and our many ways of dying are often the ways that we get in touch with our vulnerabilities.

Precisely where we are weakest and often most broken and most needy, precisely there can be the ground of our fruitfulness. Like trees that die and become fuel, and like leaves that die and become fertilizer, in nature something new comes out from death all the time. So you have to realize that you are part of that beautiful process, that your death is not the end but in fact it is the source of your fruitfulness beyond you in new generations, in new centuries.

Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 8/7/21

Fruit suggests something far more organic, dynamic, and nourishing than mere “results.” Fruit bears within it seeds of new life and provides nourishment for others. The fruit of practice is compassion, born of the fragrant wound of solidarity with all that is.

Martin Laird, Ocean of Light, p. 128

Fruits of Transformation: Attachment gives way to appreciation, Politeness elevates to kindness, Honor elevates to integrity, Believing gives way to awe, Hope gives way to gratitude, Self-consciousness melts in the intimacy of self-forgetfulness, Unworthiness ceases in grateful humility, Judgment evolves into discernment, Confusion gives way to clarity, Separation dissolves in a glowing experience of unity.

Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 83

The foundational spiritual question is this: Does one’s life give any evidence of an encounter with God?

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 8/11/19

Whenever I am tempted to speak words of contempt or fear, may I be inspired to speak words grounded in love and compassion;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words of despir or cynicism, may I be inspired to speak words of joy and delight;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words of rage or aggression, may I be inspired to speak words that promote peace and reconciliation;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words of panic or unnecessary urgency, may I be inspired to speak words of patience and sustainability;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words that are indifferent or uncaring, may I be inspired to speak words filled with kindness and understanding;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words that are mean-spirited or abusive, may I be inspired to speak words that embody goodness and care;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words of suspicion or jealousy, may I be inspired to speak words of faithfulness and trust;

Whenever I am tempted to speak words that are brutal or harsh, may I be inspired instead to speak words that are tender and gentle;

Whenever I am tempted to speak in extremist or rigid ways, may I be inspired to speak words of temperance and moderation.

One by one, we can make this world a better place, one breath, one act of kindness at a time. Let’s do it.

Carl McColman, The Fruit of the Spirit… and the Fraught Words that Divide Us