What is Goodness?

(finished writing this Oct 1, 2010)

Continuing my study of the fruits of the Spirit...

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness...”

I read a shampoo bottle the other day that reveals the condition of our society. The shampoo was called “Drama Clean.” Their motto: “I’m so good; I’ll put clean thoughts into your head.”

Usually marketing schemes target felt needs. How many people out there are looking to get rid of the drama in their life, looking for something good, and hoping to have clean thoughts in their mind? Apparently there are plenty of people out there, and they must be buying enough shampoo; it wasn’t on the clearance shelf!

Probably not many people actually believe you can get goodness from a shampoo. But when you stop to think about it, where in the world can you find true goodness?

According to Galatians 5:22,23 goodness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Goodness is something the Holy Spirit produces. And that makes sense that only a part of the Trinity could produce goodness when you consider Mark 10:18, “There is none good but God.”

What does God’s goodness look like? I found three (and there are many more) mentions of “goodness” in the Bible that help me comprehend what goodness is.

1.) In Genesis 1, after each day of creation, God pronounced that what He created was “good.”

Even though sin has upset the original Eden, we still enjoy heirlooms of how “good” things used to be:

- examining the intricacy, coloring, and unique shape of any flower

- rubbing a cat’s silky belly with your bare feet

- laying on your back in a sunny, breeze-tossed field of prairie grass

- biting into a perfectly ripe Colorado peach, juice dripping off your chin

- watching the hilarious antics of monkeys or squirrels

- trudging up foot after foot of mountain scenery and gazing down at the breathtaking panorama below

- wading in warm saltwater with sand oozing between your toes and tides washing the seaweeds back and forth around your ankles

- living in a lingering, golden-pink sunset

- picking loads of delicious, shiny berries

- enjoying the sharp scent and captivating flames of a fall campfire

- tracing the patterns of frost on the window glass

- seeing your breath become “clouds” on a damp, frigid morning

- hearing the squeak under your boots as you walk through drifts of new-fallen snow

- gazing up into a black, winter sky glittering with trillions of stars

- listening to a symphony of frogs or crickets “tune up” for the evening

- smelling the green freshness of spring as rain subsides and a rainbow softly appears

- studying the eyes of your dog as they beg for one more treat

- feeling the wind play in your hair...

It’s all good! If you want to know what goodness is, just look at the things God has made. I am sure you have felt the thrill in your heart and experienced the sense that these things are good. They are the goodness of God revealed. The goodness of God in a touch-able, experience-able, sensational version.

What is goodness? It is the beauty and rightness and awesomeness of nature - the mysterious yet pleasurable sense of a Creator who had you in mind.

2.) At the end of Genesis 1 we read that God pronounced one part of His creation “very good” - the humans He made in His image.

Oh that we were still “very good”! We certainly cannot say we “are good and do good” like David said of God (Psalm 119:68). But the goodness of our Edenic past has not all been erased. The complexity of the human body, the unfathomable ability to procreate, the constant healing process - this is still “very good”!

God specifically said that “It is not good that man should be alone.” The idea of family, belonging, togetherness, intimacy, and accountability are “very good” things.

Some people tell me how fortunate I am to still be single. I can’t help but notice that all the people who talk like this are married, were married, or technically should have been married. I have never had a single person, older than me, tell me how fortunate I am! Rather, they try to be encouraging and point out the blessings that come despite the fact that we are single, not because we are single. That is because it is NOT good for us to be alone. Thankfully I still have friends and family!...

I met a woman this year who is 85 and alone. She lost her husband 10 years ago, was never able to have children, has a nephew who came around this month only to make sure her estate and will was in order (for him), her last girlfriend died two years ago, her church picks her up like a taxi once a week for groceries or church if she’s feeling up to it, and she is coming down with Alzheimer’s... and when I went over to tell the neighbor lady about the situation right next door to her she said: “Yeah, I know, I look every morning to make sure her shade goes up. If it doesn’t, then I’ll know she’s dead and will call the ambulance.” It is NOT good for us to be alone!

Surely we have all experienced how “very good” it is to have family and friends:

- the inside joke that is only understood by someone who has experienced life with you

- being able to eat breakfast together in your pajamas, because you are family

- the “good old days” talk, reminiscing about adventures together

- someone who will notice when you lose weight, because they care

- the reason to call home when you are going to be late

- someone who’ll tell you when there is a dryer sheet stuck to the back of your pants, cowlick sticking up on the back of your head, or something green in your teeth

- piling together into one car, singing and laughing and talking until you get there

- the comforting hug, knowing look, touch on the shoulder, listening ear

- the sense that you are supposed to be there (belonging rather than intruding)

- having a right to expectations of one another (“that’s what friends are for”)

- the interesting fun of getting to know another unique mind

- the pain of loss when it has been transformed into anticipation of reuniting

What is goodness? It is the warm belonging, the helpful accountability, the safe vulnerability, and the fun interaction with friends and family, which God knew would be needed by humans created in His own relational image.

3.) Perhaps the most individualized expression of God’s goodness is found in God’s providences for our personal day to day lives.

As Joseph said to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, “...as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Genesis 50:20 It was God’s providence that turned the hate of Joseph’s brothers into the very means of keeping them, plus a whole nation, alive during a time of severe famine.

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Ps 84:11

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights...” James 1:17

Trust “in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy” I Timothy 6:17

What God provides for us is good! He is the best gift giver there ever could be because He knows us intimately. A list of providences and gifts God has given to me will not mean as much to you as it does to me. But perhaps it will spark your memory to think about His providences in your life:

- When I was 6 years old my folks got me a $50 teddy bear for Christmas. Paddington may have seemed totally extravagant and ridiculous (My parents even wondered what they were thinking, but he was so cute they felt compelled!). It’s a good thing he was quality stuff! He has provided a sense of “home” and security for me for 27 years now. And as silly as it may seem to you, I know God provided that stuffed bear.

- Going to church school for first and second grade meant that I would have to stay with Grandpa Schorsch every day after school, until Dad got off work. Those hours with Grandpa formed my life’s interests - gardening, birdwatching, reading, cooking, and art. I am so thankful God provided that time to be with Grandpa, who died six years later.

- One time I visited a family that lived way out in the hill country of Iowa and thought to myself, “It would be so nice to live out here in this quiet, beautiful countryside!” Five years later we moved... to a place just four miles down the road from there! And no one knew about my heart’s desire to live in that area, except God.

- I had accepted a job in Ukraine as an English language teacher/missionary. I arrived only to discover that the school was not really connected to the church and was run by someone else trying to make money on the name! My return plane ticket was for nine months later... But the translator was from my church and offered for me to stay with his family and help with their mission work. I learned so much from that dear family, and can see how my time there changed the direction of my life.

- “The Little Red Chariot” (aka 1996 Subaru Impreza) that I got in 2005 for $3,800 with 91,000 miles on it, has carried me 134,000 miles in the last 5 years. Until recently, it only had one problem when the water pump went out. Otherwise it was the most hassle free transport I’ve ever heard of. And it is even red : } my favorite color.

- Traveling around so much, I can’t have a cat or dog... But God has provided a pet for me every summer! Each spring some little spider moves into the space behind the driver’s side mirror of my car. I enjoy watching the little thing grow into a nice fat spider. Whenever the car is stopped it will climb out and build a web between the mirror and the door. And when I start the car, it will gather up some of the threads and crawl back inside the mirror. Sometimes I forget and take off before it gets to safety. The poor thing hangs on to the web for dear life until I notice and pull over! Then it scrambles back to its shelter.

- My family, of course, is the biggest providence of my life. I would not be the same person without each of them. They are a gift that I thank God for every day. And everywhere I go, God provides people with just the things I need: people for companionship, people to teach, people to encourage, people that I can observe and learn “what not to do,” people I can love and serve, and people that I instantly bond with in a way I don’t understand completely but really enjoy. The way I meet these people is so crazy sometimes that I know they are a providence from God!

What is goodness? It is the providences, or gifts, from God that have shaped our life and carried us through. It is having Someone provide for you what you never could provide for yourself.

How does the fruit of the Spirit, goodness, manifest itself in your life? God wants to make us fruitful in goodness - as beautiful, right, and awesome as nature; as helpful, fun, safe, and close as friends and family; as useful and fulfilling to others as God’s providences are to us.

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusts in Him.” Psalm 34:8

What's Good About Small Things

(This is an old post that I am finally getting added.)

This morning I woke up in “my” new house. The house I stayed in when in Spencer, Iowa finally sold. But my landlord (can you call him that when he doesn’t charge?) bought another house just a block away.

With only one week between closings, and that week spent in my landlord’s summer cabin which is also in the neighborhood, I was barely able to grasp the fact that I was moving. It finally sunk in when I drove past the first house and saw a couple setting up their furniture in the front room...

So this morning, as I tried to sort out where I was, the bedroom finally came under scrutiny. “It’s pretty small,” I thought. The air mattress takes up about 80% of the room. And the remaining 20% is wasted space because the folding closet doors swing out over it. Oh, well. Why would I need extra space in the bedroom anyway?

I took two steps out the bedroom door and was in the kitchen in front of the sink. There are ruffled yellow curtains at that window similar to what I always pictured in my future “dream home.” And the pot my little aloe plant is in, exactly matches the yellow in the curtains. Funny how that seemed to make the plant look at home.

The view out that kitchen window is the highlight of “my” new little house. Just outside the window are loads of day lilies blooming away. (My Grandpa Minikus calls them “orchridges.” Familiar flowers make any place seem like home to me.) The flowers reach up past the sill and make bouquets in the window. Just past the day lilies is a narrow blacktop alley. Then comes the neighbor’s white picket fence with a row of perennial flowers planted all along front. Picture perfect!

After getting a drink, I took two more steps in the same direction to use the bathroom. It’s the kind of bathroom where you can sit on the toilet and spit in the sink. Comes in handy when you are in a hurry trying to brush your teeth and accomplish other things at the same time.

Back in my room I realized that I was going to have to keep all my “office” stuff in the living room. Usually my bedroom is where I do all my paperwork... there is no room for a desk in this cabin... ok, so I’ll sit on the couch in the living room... two steps to the kitchen and two steps to the right and I am in the “living room.”

The wooden floor was painted brown sometime recently, and where that layer of brown is peeling up I can see the gray underneath. I’m glad someone painted it brown instead! The walls are a creamy color that borders on chiffon yellow, so that looks much better with dark brown than the slate-gray color that is trying to re-appear on the floor.

The floor in the living room is nearly covered by a 5’x8’ area rug that is a shocking leopard print. I used two of my moving boxes for “furniture” by “papering” them with black garbage bags (I didn’t have any paper sacks... but the black plastic blends in pretty well with the black and brown leopard print rug). I put my printer on one box against one wall, and I put my philodendron and mother-in-law tongue plants on the other box in front of the double windows. My friend Jenny sent me a red silk cloth to help cover my “furniture” when she heard about my garbage bags. She knew red is my favorite color and thought that it would add a bright flower effect to my “jungle” of black plastic bags, plants, and leopard rug. It works!

The curtains in the bedroom, living room, and bathroom are all white sheers that are way too long for the windows. The previous owner tied them up with nylon strings. I still had my spider plant to put somewhere... so I bought a metal hook thing from Walmart and screwed it into the wood door jam and hung the plant there using a “macrame” plant hanger that I made out of the nylon strings that tied up the curtains. To hold the curtains back I clipped hem markers from my sewing box on them. It worked!

There is a striped hide-a-bed couch on the back wall of the living room. It’s actually really comfortable as a couch and not bad as a bed. There is a rip in the back on one side, so I lay my red lap quilt across the corner when I am not using it. Books line the walls along the floor. That is handy.

The refrigerator is the size of the one I had in the camper trailer in Texas, and it makes an ominous whistling noise when it runs. But it started up again when the power came back on after a bad storm we had; so that’s cool. And the stove is also like the one I had in the trailer, in that I light it with a match. But I have always liked cooking on gas stoves where you can see the heat and know exactly what you are doing when you cook; so that’s hot. Although the oven doesn’t get hot enough and the cake I made for my Mom’s birthday was still pudding after 25 min of baking... it eventually got done and I pulled it out to discover that the floor is so un-level in “my” house that the cake ended up 1 inch deep on one side and 1 1/2 inches deep on the other! It was so funny!

Two more steps and you are right back where you started in this tour of my new little house. Everything is close at hand and there is very little time needed to clean it! And it already feels like home. I appreciate how God always provides a space in this world for me. And I appreciate the family that is letting me stay in their cabin for free!

Oh, here is a picture of the outside. That “pine tree,” on the right of the house, someone carved from a stump! And I moved my potted flowers from the last place to this porch. Also interesting to note: the address here is 421 Lincoln Ave. When I was growing up, I lived in Council Bluffs, Iowa at 321 Lincoln Ave. How ironic!

We Have it All in Iowa!

For those who think Iowa is a backwards, hillbilly, flat state with nothing but fields & farmers...

We actually have big industry! This is an ethanol plant along Highway 18.

We have some "green" thinkers. There are wind generators dotting the fields...

We even have skyscrapers - to store grain in.

Some hydroponic gardening (maple seeds sprouting in the gutters).

We are not devoid of law and order either. (a sign in the church parking lot)

We have couch potatoes like any other state. Only our couches are hay racks! (this is my nephew holding Dixie Lee, his new baby goat)

And our chickens are smart enough to run the farm machinery!

We do get snow here. Sometimes a LOT of it.

But we get sunshine most every day. (this is my Mom sitting pretty at Preparation Canyon)

We have amazing soil! This is the garden plot I am using this year.

And amazing soil makes for some amazing weeds! There is some garden in there.

The soil grows most of the nations corn.

And hay....

We do get some scary storms too, so the camping areas have storm shelters.

We have wild animals... well, wildlife. Ok, we have a lot of cows and pigs.

And cats (this is Sergeant Gusto, our house cat).

This spider spent a week in the refrigerator guarding it's egg case (I didn't know I had picked it with my Swiss Chard). When I took her out she warmed up and hauled the case all the way up the wall to the ceiling!

And some pretty big fish! This was a muskie at a fish hatchery - almost 4 feet long!

Little Bumble was the baby robin that I watched grow up in my backyard. We were good friends until I moved. I nearly picked him up one day. He went from this stubby little tail and spots to a long sleek tail and rusty red chest.

We have "wild dogs" too! Bogie, Dad's buddy, is wild about his tennis ball shooter!

We have the ugliest bugs I've ever seen - earwigs! Yucky!

Iowa also has amazing people - like my friends Dr. Dennis and Jeanette Dahl. They took me bird watching one afternoon with our cameras. Dr. Dahl is also a mountain climber and go cart racer (I know, I don't know what he does with his 6'5" in a go cart either! But I've seen pictures.

Mr. Nickum is an amazing artist. After his bout with heart disease and diabetes he started making little figurines with duct tape. He has over 150 different ones. Oh, and this is Smokey on his lap - a Chinese Hairless Crested dog. The funniest looking dog I've ever seen!

Fran is 93 and still "techy" enough to enjoy helping me choose pictures for a slideshow we made documenting the church's "A Father's Day A-Fair" event.

We have the best Chinese restaurant - our friends own it. They come to our house every July 4 with a LOT of food. I'm glad I got some this year!

And my Dad and brother had a spaghetti sauce cook-off. Yummy!

We have culture... Matt and Josie had a concert at this location in Spencer, IA.

This was the early crowd - a lot more came on time.

And we have fun with pyrotechtics.

We do have some water here at the "Iowa Great Lakes"

And, yes, we do have hills in Iowa!

Wanted: Dead or Alive (a sermon)

In the old western movies you always knew someone had done something terrible when their face showed up on a poster that said “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” And usually there was a reward offered to anyone who could bring the person in.

Most everyone desires to know that they are wanted. Not necessarily the kind of “wanted” that would put them on a poster with a bounty on their head! But everyone desires to know that they are “wanted” as in valued.

Did you know that people are valuable to God and to Satan? When we understand what makes us valuable to God we begin to learn the value of every other person on earth as well. And we begin to value our Saviour...

People are extremely valuable to Satan because:

1. Satan can’t create, but people can pro-create for him

Isaiah 45 - God made all things. That leaves Satan out of picture. There is no other being that can create something out of nothing.

Satan can swell the number of beings in his rebellion by encouraging sexuality beyond its intended parameters. Can’t you see how everything from chewing gum advertisements to clothing styles keeps our sexuality in the forefront of our minds? Some, religions even, call it a sin to use birth control methods. (multiply!)

Among believers, Satan still manipulates our procreating ability by keeping the Christian parents too busy to train their children to resist Satan. By surrounding the children with influences that have nothing to do with the reality of God (video games, cartoons, sports...) the children are less likely to ever seek to know who God is or even think about Him. Satan can easily put them in touch with just the ones who will train their minds for his purposes. In this way Satan can vicariously “create” just the people needed to fulfill his plans. We’re a commodity.

2. Satan can cause hurt/pain, even death to a part of God through people

In order to forgive our sins, God has to deny His feelings of hate for sin. In a small scale I relate to this in remembering how I had to deny my feelings of repulsions about my Grandma’s gangrenous bedsores in order to clean them out and put the dressing on. It cannot be pleasant for God to see all the horrible things we do to each other; all the terrible results of our rebellious lifestyles; the chaotic, cruel world that has come to be because of our disregard for His laws of love and life. But He still looks on this ugly scene with compassion and deals with our sins. He swallows down the cup of His wrath in order to forgive us and make a way of escape. It kills a part of God. You know that He died for our sins.

For all of eternity God will carry the marks of His suffering. He promises us that He will wipe away all tears from our eyes. But He says of Himself:

“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” Isaiah 49:15,16

Speaking of the time when we will be in Heaven the prophet Zechariah wrote: “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” Zechariah 13:6

For eternity God will miss those people who chose to never see His face again. Satan values people as a means to cause God eternal pain and heartache.

3. Satan can transform anyone of us into his agents; we’re so vulnerable

We are valuable to Satan because we are such pushovers. It doesn’t take much to tempt us. A nice fatty meal and an entertaining TV show and we are guaranteed to be useless to God for the rest of the night. A few disrespectful words and a frown from our spouse can tick us off for the whole day and spread the ugly attitude to everyone we come in contact with.

We are valuable to Satan as his agents to spread lies, negativity, judgmental thoughts, irreverence, dirty thoughts and just about anything else Satan wants us to do, often without even realizing it. We are no match for his trickery. He deceived Eve, and he can deceive us. That’s scary to think about, isn’t it!?! Praise God for the armor of God and the Holy Spirit! We’ll look at this more...

Bottom Line: We are wanted by Satan because he can use us for his selfish desires and plans. He wants pawns for his worldwide game of chess. He cares not whether we live or die, as long as his purposes are being carried out.

People are extremely valued by God: (how do we know? because...)

1. We were created by the God of the universe!

Think about it, when God created Adam and Eve, was somebody there twisting His arm? Did God HAVE to make us? No, He wanted to make us. He wasn’t following some manual for creating... ok, step 4... oh, gotta have a man to take care of the plants and animals - a gardener and zookeeper. No, God made everything for man. His goal in creating the earth was to make a place for the people He wanted to create. He had us in mind all along. We were a “planned pregnancy.” He desired to create us. He WANTS us!

Think of it! The God of the whole universe, the owner of every star and galaxy in the universe, the Lord of thousands times ten thousands and thousands and thousands of angels, the Ruler of an unknown number of worlds... He wanted to create you. Now that puts value on you that nothing else in the the world could!

If an ugly old painting that is just a bunch of dark blue and mustard colored dots swirling around in a formless mass, is worth millions of dollars because some man by the name of Vincent van Gogh painted it, then think how valuable we must be since we are created by the Almighty God, Creator of all that exists!

2. We are redeemed by the Son of God - Jesus Christ

Isaiah 43:1-7 “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine...vs.3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour... vs.4 Because you are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you... vs.7 everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.” Fear not, forI have redeemed you.

We are so valuable to God that He sent His beloved Son, His second self, to redeem (exchange, buy back) us from Satan. John 3:16,17

Jesus claims us as His own. He wants us! Philippians 3:12

One of Jesus’ last prayers to His Father was “that they may be with Me where I am” John 17:24 He wants to be with us! We are valuable to Him.

3. We are being transformed by the Holy Spirit into useful, awesome people

God sent the Holy Spirit to make us His heirs: those who will inherit eternal life; rather than let us be the disposable pawns of Satan. Galatians 4:67

Because He loves us, God sends the Holy Spirit to wash and renew us, transforming us... Titus 3:4,5 God could have started over! But He values us enough to patiently work with us. A typical Iowa farmer has a farm dog. If the dog chases the chickens instead of rats, and digs holes in the yard, and barks all night, the typical Iowa farmer will get rid of the dog and get another one. Typical Iowa farmers only value dogs as working animals. If they don’t perform correctly they are out! But when God works with us, He doesn’t start over. He retrains the “bad dog” - He doesn’t just get a new one. He takes the time to teach us and show us a better way, to train us up into beautiful, useful people. He loves us to much to just get rid of us and start over.

The production of the Holy Spirit, the result of His work in us, makes us loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, gentle, good, faithful, meek, temperate people. God values us so much that He sent the Holy Spirit to remake us to be useful and awesome people, if we will let Him! This is just the opposite of being vulnerable to Satan. We’re in God’s hands here. The God who wants only good for us.

Bottom Line: We are wanted by God because He enjoys blessing us, and giving of Himself to us, and training us into a never-ending life of purpose, adventure, and joy.

We have seen that we are the ones who are wanted: dead or alive. God wants us; He values every person. Even Satan wants us, for his own plans of course; nevertheless he values every person.

So how valuable are people to us?

Do we value people as Satan does? Are they valuable only as much as they fit into our plans? Or do we value people as God does? Are they valuable to us because they were created by the God of all the universes? Are they valuable because they are people we can bless? people to give ourselves, our time, and our affections to? people to teach and train into the never-ending life of eternity with God?

In closing:

I thought of Someone else who was “wanted: dead or alive.” It was Jesus. The Pharisees wanted Him dead of course. And the disciples wanted Him alive so that they could sit next to Him on His throne. But there was one person who wanted Jesus dead or alive - that was Mary Magdalene. When Jesus was alive she wanted Him; she wanted to be near Him and listen to Him. She wanted to serve Him by washing His feet with precious ointment. Remember when she sat weeping by the empty tomb after Jesus died? She told the supposed gardener that she wanted His body so she could care for it properly. She wanted to serve Him even when He was dead. She wanted Jesus dead or alive because she valued Him as the most important Person in her life.

Do we value God that much? Is He the most important Person in our lives?

May we accept the value God has placed on us, and the value He has placed on every other person on earth.

Father in Heaven, we barely comprehend how valuable we are to You. I know Satan would like to destroy this knowledge because he knows that when we feeling unwanted by You we will turn to him for belonging and feeling wanted. Please point out the evidences of the value You place on us. Please convict our minds of this truth.

And may we learn this not merely for our own sake, but for the sake of every person on earth - that we may value them as You do, and live accordingly. We ask in Jesus name, amen.

Gentleness: Kindness in Action

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness...

Whenever I think of gentleness I remember a friend I used to have. He was anything but gentle. Whenever he took something out of your hand he snatched it out, caring not whether he jerked your arm or scratched you with his fingernails. If he was walking by you, you had better get out of the way or he would bowl you right over. And whisper was not a part of his volume options. You've heard the expression: “like a bull in a china closet.” He was like that!

I always thought this verse was talking about being the opposite of my friend. I thought gentleness was touching things lightly, being delicate, not getting in the way, and speaking softly... soft was the key word.

It was interesting to me to find that the original Greek word used in this listing of the fruits of the Spirit isn’t really referring to some kind of softness. The definition is: usefulness, excellence in character or demeanor, kindness; employed; to furnish what is needed. So that’s why some Bible versions use the word “kindness” in place of the King James’ version “gentleness.”

One of the fruits of the Spirit is kindness. And this kindness is “employed,” “furnishes what is needed,” “useful.”

All my life, I have had such a desire to be useful. My motivations have varied over the years. Sometimes I desire to be useful to others so that they will be useful to me in return. Sometimes I have desire to be useful because others needs are so huge that it hurts me to see them unfulfilled. Sometimes I would like people to see me as a very kind person, because I admire kind people, and I want people to admire me.

But true kindness is not a desire to be kind and useful. It is BEING kind and useful. It is furnishing what is needed. It is being employed actively for others. And that is a whole other story... A story that is not about me, but about others!

My friend actually had more gentleness than I did! He at least had the action part down! (Granted he could have been a little softer in his manner of going about things.) But he was always in full speed action for others, whereas I as softly living for myself!

I’m thankful to learn that this characteristic of gentle-kindness, usefulness employed for others, is something that the Holy Spirit produces in us. I can’t produce it in myself without my self getting in the mix!

“Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation: and Thy right hand has held me up, and Thy gentleness hath made me great.” Psalm 18:35 I’m glad God is gentle!

Feeling Impatient?

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering...” Galatians 5:22

This is the King James Version Bible. Other versions use the word “patience” in place of the word “long-suffering.” I suppose both words include the same meaning; but the word long-suffering conveys the emotion involved.

Lately I have wondered: “Why am I feeling so much strain and heartache? Why do I keep failing at being patient?” Somehow I have it in my head that patience is a feeling of calm without pain. But if the Bible calls it long-suffering... maybe my feelings of suffering are in order!

Looking at the definitions, I see an action aspect and an emotional aspect of patience.

patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset

long-suffering: forbearance, fortitude, to bear up under, endure

The fruit of the Spirit, long-suffering/patience, will affect our actions. We will forbear to do what we feel like doing. We will continue on in our waiting. We won’t yell, lash out, be rude, etc. But notice that we will feel troubled and suffer. We will “bear up under and endure” which requires emotional strain and pain.

Think about it, many situations requiring patience also require some sort of suffering. Whether you are waiting for someone to get out of the bathroom or living with an alcoholic, your patience is going to cause you some degree of discomfort or downright suffering.

Patience is not being free from suffering; it is suffering long! That sounds terrible!... except for the fact that if one is not suffering long in this pain-filled world, it is because they are dead and only had to suffer short! Galatians 5:22 is promising that the Holy Spirit of God will bring this “fruit” of patience to our lives that we may be able to endure, keep going, carry on, suffer long... as long as needed.

To feel the strain does not necessarily mean that one has failed to be patient. We shouldn’t be discouraged if we feel the suffering. Rather we should be encouraged by the fact that God has given us the ability to endure in spite of our feelings.

Look at the great amount of long-suffering He has!...

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation...’ The Lord is not slack concerning His promise [to return and take us home], as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

2 Peter 3:3,4,9