The Fruits of the Spirit: How We Hang Fake Fruit from Dead Trees.

An image came to me the other day, and I felt compelled to create it as a sculpture. I don't know what I will do with this sculpture other than post images of it on this blog post eventually.

The image is a dead tree with little plastic fruit tied to it; a visual metaphor for what happens when we try to force the fruits of the Spirit.

How many times have you tried to develop "self control" over and over again and failed? Or practiced lists of kind words, or counted to ten for patience? Why does practicing the fruits of the Spirit have to be so hard? My argument is that we are focusing on the fruits and not putting enough effort into the plant: our relationship, the source of the fruit. Our ever-perfecting faith will create rough patches where our faith and human nature will combat for control, and it is our freedom from that slavery to sin that allows us to say yes to the fruits of the Spirit instead.

I think we often go about the fruits of the Spirit backwards, for these fruits are the gifts that come from a healthy relationship with God, and cannot be forced out of a life that does not reflect a true relationship. That "fruit" is ad- hoc and non-nutritious, it hurts to produce. How often do we try to be kind for kindness' sake? To choose love only to be looked at as loving: this reputation weighted guilt often takes more from the public opinion of love more than what is actually godly loving. True love is not necessarily being "nice."

If you have a hard time finding the fruits of the Spirit in your life, do not despair, and do not struggle to manifest them in your own power. Turn instead to the source of these gifts, and water your own grass, take care of the core relationship with God, ask him where you lack. Love on God, worship him, and give thanks, rest in his grace. This takes humility, and a practice all of it's own.

Finding Opposition When You Stir Up Spiritual Gifts

When people start to grow and learn in their spiritual gifts, I think one thing in particular goes unaddressed, and that is spiritual opposition towards using and growing in it, after all, it's there to strengthen and help the church, and that's one of the last things Satan wants. When something is important in the production of good, it becomes a special target of Satan for obstruction.

My church just had a miniseries on spiritual gifts, and I honestly don't think we are prepared for the after math of the spiritual battle that is going to come.

I have had considerable resistance to trying to connect in my church, and it's so much of no one's fault and yet I feel neglected and isolated. Just what Satan would like. He would also like it if I got angry and indignant at these people who really haven't done anything wrong. But those feelings are distractions from the important thing that needs to happen. I need my church, and they need me, in matters of spiritual gifts and otherwise, and I can't possibly be the only one facing resistance.


1 Spiritual gifts produce important results. But they are important as God judges importance, and may not have the impact our small eyes want to see, or the attention our small egos want to hear. So have faith when your efforts do not seem worth the fruit, for it is ours to plant, and for God to make it grow.

2. If you call for spiritual gifts to be practiced, you will be resisted. Satan doesn't like God's important things, and tries to ruin them. This is no different. Expect opposition on every level, from the exsistence of spiritual gifts, the definitions, the growth, and the fruit. We face resistance from the lies we believe about ourselves, the trust in our inadequacies to fill our gifts more than God's actions through us, and the external resistence from others with or without malice. The exercise of our spiritual gifts is more valuable than the cost of our ego, we must sacrifice our expectations of how we are to be treated or respected and focus on the goal of the gift that is required of us. It is so easy to be tangled up in the lies of imagined slights and politics and destroy the opportunity to do God's work because the circumstances to producing the fruit were not politically correct or comfortable. Our fruit is more important, and Satan will do anything, no matter how cheap and petty, to prevent the exercise of our gifts. In fact, he loves the cheap and petty, so watch out for low blows and irksome tiny things that, really, don't have anything to do with Eternity.

3 Resistance is aimed at us. Nothing can prevent God from doing anything, he is God. So Satan must try to prevent us from doing God's will. Resistance is not a consequnice of our wrongdoing. Sometimes we have punishments and consequences for what we do on Earth, and that is not the same as being opposed or going through a hard time for something good.

 Satan will attack the discovery of our gifts with decit that they don't exsist, and lies that you are not good enough to weld them. Get up. Satan will fight at the growth of our gifts, he will attack every mistake and failure. Get up. He will attack the fruit of our gifts with put downs, neglect, and lies of unworthiness. Get up, we need you .



Fight, babies, as you take your first steps, fall and get up. Get mad at the inevitable gravity of our human nature. Fight and walk, and trust that one day you will run.