Just another farmers market?

Have you ever gone to the farmer's market? I'm talking about the good farmer's markets that specialize in organic fruits and vegetables. I think they have one guy who's only responsibility for 8 hours a day is to sort out all of the bad fruit so that only the freshest, ripest and most appealing fruit remains. Even though I have never met that guy I still appreciate him. I think when Paul wrote about the fruits of the Spirit in his letter to the church of Galatia he was kind of thinking along these same lines.

He said the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self-control. It pains me to think of how many Christians come up way short on living out these virtues. When I contrast my life to that of the Christ, or even Paul, I feel very convicted.

Last night I was leaving church and there was a slow person in front of me. I couldn't stand being behind them so I had to speed around them but as soon as I did I had to wait at the light for 2 minutes, then I pulled into the nearest drive thru to get some food and i swear the person in front of me ordered half of a cow because their order took so long. Not even an hour after giving a 30 minute message on the fruits of the Spirit I still find myself struggling with not having enough patience. That is the one thing that I am really bad at, but I could improve on all of them for sure.

I finished the message last night with the question: "What would your family, school, community and world look like if everyone worked every day to get better at these virtues?"

I can think of nothing that would be that amazing!! It is hard to imagine a world with no war because everyone is a peace, or no addiction because everyone has self-control, or no depression because everyone has joy.

I thank Paul for writing these things down for me, for giving me a small little checklist to work on because sometimes trying to be Christ-like can get a little bit overwhelming. When I try to live by Christ's example I feel so inadequate but when I have 9 things that I can work on daily it gives me a shred of hope. It is my prayer this week that I would be a piece of fruit that a person would like to put in their fruit salad, that I can improve in all of these areas and let Christ shine thru me.