Rays of Light

About the only time I experience the manly phenomenon of being “compartmentalized” is when I am in cleaning mode. I’m not talking about the fifth round of counter wiping and floor sweeping. Rather, I mean the all-out offensive war on grime.

Some of you women know what I’m talking about. When in that mode, we rigorously clean and sanitize everything in sight including the dog if it gets in the way. We are focused!

My son once caught me in the middle of one of those cleaning sprees and asked if he could have one of the apples on the table. They were wooden apples and he knew it, so this was obviously his cute little attempt to pull one over on mom while she was preoccupied. And he did.

“Go for it” I said, calling his bluff.

I stopped scrubbing sticky stuff long enough to watch him bite off a big chunk and chew on it with glee. Normally his ear-to-ear grin would have given him away instantly, but I was focused. It took a short while for my brain to process the fact that he had earlier switched the fake apple for a real one.

Having succeeded in his endeavor to make me laugh, he really enjoyed that apple and I’m glad he did! After all, he gets his sense of humor from his mama so what can I say?

Today was kind of the opposite. I picked a nicely colored apple –a real one — and bit into it expecting the sweet flavor of apple. I might as well have bit into one of those wooden look-alikes though, because it probably tasted about the same. Even caramel wouldn’t have helped this one.

Oddly, the same kind of thing happened this past week. While grocery shopping, I noted how paltry all of the produce looked. Nevertheless, the nectarines looked pleasing enough so I bought one to nibble on while making dinner. What a disappointment! When I bit into that pitiful thing there was zero taste. None!

I said to my husband, “Well, they finally did it; they managed to geneticallly engineer something which resembles fruit –but they forgot to give it any flavor.” He took one bite and realized I was not exaggerating the least bit. Then, wanting to check-out this peculiarity for himself, my youngest son took a bite. Even his taste buds manifested their confusion through the expression on his face as he tossed the remainder of the ‘nectarine’ into the trash.

Later that evening, I was thinking about that flavorless piece of ‘fruit’ and bemoaned the fact that I haven’t enjoyed a really good apple, pear or peach for many years. certain types of fruit have retained some of their flavor but certainly not all.

Then it hit me! Is any of my spiritual fruit tasteless? The fruit of the spirit, according to the fifth chapter of Galatians, are these:

Love * Joy * Peace * Patience * Kindness * Goodness * Faithfulness
* Gentleness *Self-control

Notice these nine attributes of fruit, according to scripture, are singular. This is significant. If someone is living according to God’s word, they shouldn’t exhibit only some of these attributes in their lives–they should exhibit them all.

I truly desire that my own fruit basket be overflowing with every one of the tasty, nutritious fruit of the Spirit. But truthfully, I have to admit that some of my fruit is less flavorful than others. I trust that none of my fruit may be likened to a wooden decoration but even so, real fruit is of little value to others if it is merely a tasteless hybrid.

Heaven forbid that any person every be confused by my testimony of faith because they realize that the fruit I attempt to share has absolutely no flavor. But how do I ensure that my fruit is really good?

First, I am willing to confess to myself, and to you, that some of my fruit is not fully ripe. Therefore, I ask my heavenly Father often that He cultivate me in whichever way He sees fit until my fruit is all HE desires it to be. Once it is, I must be willing to share my fruit with everyone I encounter. After all, fruit is meant to be consumed not merely displayed. The more fruit we share with others, the more they can see God’s goodness –that should be our focus.

My son’s fun little prank helped me learn an important lesson that day. We should all honestly examine our own fruit baskets to see if the fruit is real or artificial. After all, when someone comes to us expecting to find tasty, nutritious fruit, we don’t want them biting into wood.

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. (John 15:8)