"The Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control ... the Spirit has given us
life; he must also control our lives." When I was growing up, one of the things I
loved to do was bake. When I was first learning, mom warned me how important it was to
measure the ingredients carefully and not to leave anything out. Unlike other kinds of
cooking, baking requires specific proportions of ingredients in order to turn out right.
In one of my early attempts, I popped a cake into the oven and eagerly waited for it to
finish baking. When I pulled it from the oven, however, the middle was still mostly
liquid. In looking back at the recipe, I realized I had used the wrong amount of one of
the main ingredients! The fruits of my labor were clearly not what I wanted or expected!
So it is with our lives. If I have my attention tuned to God's Spirit and choose to
follow his guidance, the Bible tells me there will be specific results identified as the
fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control (can you imagine a world filled with those?). If, however, I look
at my actions and see impatience, jealousy, anger, meanness, discontent or lack of
self-control, it's pretty clear I didn't either hear or follow the recipe that the Holy
Spirit wanted to share with me!
It takes practice to learn how to listen to that still, small voice. As we develop in
our faith, though, it's wonderful to have such clear markers that indicate that we're on
the right track!
