Fruit's gonna grow, actor’s gonna act

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Paul's words in Galatians 2 remind me that all those qualities or fruit are just that - fruit. When I am allowing the Spirit to lead, mentor, guide, etc - things will result.

I learned earlier in life I needed to act that way to show that God's Spirit was at work in me, but that's not quite what Paul was saying.

Fruit is something that grows naturally. When I was trying to "act that way", in a lot of ways, it would be like me trying to staple fruit to a tree. It just doesn't work that way.

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I really like when someone is a good actor in a movie or TV show. You know someone is a really good actor when you despise them because they play their role so well. And it's just them playing a role!

We can act like we have love, joy, peace and so on, but when the stage goes away, the love, joy, peace, patience and so on goes away with it.

"All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players, performers, and portrayers - each another's audience outside the guided cage."

We learn what roles to play depending on the situation we are in and there can be conflict between the roles on occasion, causing us to perform one or the other incorrectly or incompletely.  Ditto with faith.

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I know that it's important to learn to be someone who is loving. That usually means I have to understand what love is, how it's shown or lived out.  Ditto with joy, gentleness, and so on.

There's a blend between learning what is it and how it is lived out AND then also learning what it's like when it actually just happens - like when it comes out of you because it's what is in your heart.

A person can act out a lot of things - and sometimes we have to because of the situation we're in or because of the stage we're on.

I see now that Christ's love compels us to love others - because we've received loving actions from his loving heart and he shows us how to love other - and we eventually want to do that, not just "have to".

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I know I spent years struggling with being a loving person with people who I felt didn't deserve it and then my heart changed when I saw God loving me when I was being unlovable and was undeserving.

I'm regularly reminded in life when I pass by or interact with different people that are "invisible people" that others don't see and/or aren't seen as valuable in some way.

It's not unusual for the Spirit to tap me and say, "I love them. They are valuable. Imagine when they were a baby in their mom's arms. See them as I see them, not through the lens of what the world says."

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I remember weeping at the death of the young man who, in a drug fueled craze, broke into my house and several neighbors. I was so angry and wanted justice for his stealing and causing my family to be afraid.

The police put together a case and arrested him and his girlfriend. They were squatting in her recently deceased grandmother's place and stealing from anyone and everyone to feed their addiction.

And I heard his story, after he'd gone to jail - how his mom and family didn't know what went wrong. They were a "good family" after all. They were heartbroken over his path.

I followed him through jail with the system that many jails have set up to let you know when "your" offender is released.  He'd cleaned up. He got his life together and was managing a store in NW Arkansas.

And then I got word a year or so later that he'd relapsed and overdosed. He was found dead in his car outside his workplace one morning. And I wept. 

It was one of those times when God said, "See him as a baby and as a little child. Know how he was loved by his family. See him struggle and move onto a path that ended where you saw it."

I don't think I'd have had the reaction I did just a few years earlier. All that "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" rang hollow before.

I think it was one of the first times of clarity that the fruit of the Spirit is love. I'm pretty sure if the Spirit had not been guiding my thoughts, I'd not have had a reaction of sorrow for his family and even him.

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I think it's good on occasion to say, "God, I don't have any good feeling toward those people or this situation. Help me, teach me to see something that you see that I don't see."

I truly believe he does and he will. Sure, he'll work with us as we act or mimic what we see others doing who are "loving" and through a process...

...somehow, he gets to our heart, often by showing us ourselves and what he see in us and yet loved us - loves us - anyway.  That's when we learn his love - when we see it personally.

So I don't feel bad for not acting anymore when it doesn't "feel natural" - I'll still "act loving", but I'm always asking the Spirit to give me insight that I don't have yet so that what I'm acting becomes fruit.

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Somewhere in the middle of all that learning, the pace can quicken - the learning becomes faster - usually because you just begin to see and think differently.

And it's something I have to be intentional about, otherwise my natural, untrained self can take over. I am pretty sure if I didn't start each day remembering his love for me, I'd not be a very loving person.

Coffee certainly helps, just sayin'.

But yeah, it gets to a point where Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 5 really come alive - we begin to see everyone and everything differently when we finally understand the good news of Jesus at a deep level.

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I'm really grateful for the people God put in my life who demonstrated his love - some were good church people, some were not-so-good church people, and some weren't "church people" at all. But they loved.

If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, God and his Spirit are always at work, teaching us, guiding us, showing us, loving us - usually way more vividly than anything I ever saw in a church building - but then that was never his intent anyway.

Church gatherings, formal learning times, and other churchy things helped teach some of the basics; especially what the scripture says about all the fruit of the Spirit.  And one of the main things I have learned is that fruit usually grows outside, not in a building.

And that has messed with my head and heart a lot - in a good way. Now I can see God at work in places and in people I'd never imagined before and it is amazing.