Fiona Veitch Smith

Galatians 5:16-26

Manifesting the Fruit of the Spirit is something all Christians can and should do. It is not dependent upon our personalities. As someone who is socially confident and obviously gifted in creative and spiritual things, I used to believe that the opposite of me is what a Christian should be. Surely quiet, ‘background’ people are naturally more gentle, faithful, patient and self-controlled.
 

Performance

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?
But after some misguided attempts to deny that part of me, by refusing to exercise my gifts in public, I accepted that to do so was to deny who God had created me to be. I realised that if anyone else thought I was showing off, it was their issue not mine.

Free to be me

I’m finally free to see that the Fruit of the Spirit is not personality dependent. Because that wouldn’t be fair, would it? God created some of us with bright colours and others with pastels and he loves us both.

So what is the Fruit? In verse 22 it is referred to in the singular although there are multiple aspects of it (love, joy, peace etc.). This is because the Holy Spirit is an individual and the Fruit comes from one source. It also means that unlike the Gifts of the Spirit (eg I Cor 12) we should manifest all of the fruit – although different aspects may develop at different rates. Over the next weeks we will look at each of these in more detail.

This meditation is taken from a series in Faith Station. Published by King’s Cross Training.