Fiona Veitch Smith

A Gardener’s Gospel Week 18

In the first post in this Gardener’s Gospel series I mentioned that when I first took over my garden I enthusiastically pulled up a whole lot of ground foliage thinking they were weeds – among them St John’s Wort and, what I’ve only recently discovered, were Spanish bluebells. Well fortunately for me (and them!) the Spanish bluebells grew from bulbs and despite me decimating them above ground, they’ve now made a comeback. Once these pretty blue flowers started flowering again, I realised my mistake and after searching my book of ‘Flowers by Colour’ by Jan Wilson, I finally identified this holocaust survivor. But it was only when they began to flower that I was able to recognise them.

Imposters

Last week I told you about the chilli that ended up as a cantelope pepper. Again, it was only when the fruit (I didn’t notice the difference with just the flowers) began to emerge, that I realised I had an imposter on my hands.

In the Bible there is a famous line attributed to Jesus: ‘By their fruit you will know them.’ (Matt 7:20) It takes time to get to know people and time for them to reveal their real selves. Many times I’ve been disappointed by people who appeared, at first, to be good candidates for friendship only to discover, as time went by, that their inner selves didn’t match their outer selves. And many times I’ve been hurt when people seemed to want to get to know me but then withdrew their friendship when they saw something they didn’t like in me.

A matter of personality

Is this the fruit we’re talking about? Perhaps, but it’s more likely that it’s a clash of personalities. People love me or hate me. The very things that attract some people to me: my vivacious social persona, my wit, my deep thinking and forthrightness are the very things that turn other people off – particularly after spending an evening with me! So surely ‘fruit’ is deeper than that. Is it possible that despite being irritating or awkward there are attributes that can endear us to people and, more importantly, to God?

Yes, and they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22. The difference between these and our natural personality traits is that they are ‘grown’ by allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us. But sometimes they are hard to see because we are looking at the wrong thing.

As someone who is naturally talkative, socially confident, apparently extrovert (I say apparently because I enjoy people’s company when I’m with them but prefer to spend the majority of my time on my own) and obviously gifted in creative and spiritual things, I tend to believe that the opposite of me is what being a Christian should be. Surely quiet, ‘background’ people are naturally more kind, gentle, faithful, patient and self-controlled than me! For many years I suffered with the belief that my overt giftedness was a curse that kept me from being a better Christian. Wasn’t ‘performance’ showing off? Didn’t it lead to pride? And to think about it just made me miserable.

Self-denial

But after some misguided attempts to deny that part of me, to refuse to exercise my gifts (creative and spiritual) in a public setting, I accepted that to do so was to deny who God had created me to be. As long as my heart was right with God and my intention was not to bring glory to myself, I realised that if anyone else thought I was showing off, it was their issue that they had to deal with, not mine. Some of the most pride-filled people I’ve ever met have been introverts; it just takes a bit longer to see it.

So back to the fruit: I’m not saying I have all of them in abundance – I particularly struggle with patience and self-control – but after nearly 30 years of believing that they were something quieter people have more naturally, I’m finally free to see that they are not personality dependent. Because that wouldn’t be fair; God created some of us with bright colours and others with pastels and he loves us both.

Growing fruit

The fruit of the Spirit are God-grown and they take a lifetime to mature. These are the things that reveal our true selves as God moulds us into the people he wants us to be. Am I loving? Joyful? Peaceful and kind? Am I gentle (not quiet!)? Or patient and faithful and self-controlled? Are these the things that emerge in a stressful situation; when people and circumstances put me under pressure? If not, and often it’s not, then God’s got a bit more work to do with me. This garden is still a work in progress.

Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear good fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.
Matt 7:17-20

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