Last week I was talking with the children about where grapes come from. One 4-year old lad replied, "Flowers." It was an answer I hadn't expected - although no doubt it should have been on my list of possibilities.
Later on I was talking with the adults about the Fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, generosity/goodness, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, self-control. (Galatians 5:22)
So if these fruits come from flowers, then perhaps the flowers would be called Flowers of the Spirit. If the above characteristics are the fruits then what could be the flowers from which they come?
So I put together the following list of nine practices which might help us to bear the nine fruits:
Prayer, Submission, Forgiveness, Honesty, Trust, Open-ness, Sacrifice, Vision, Purpose.
I don't propose that there is a one-to-one correlation between these nine Flowers of the Spirit to the nine Fruits of the Spirit. But it seems to me that these nine practices would help us to develop the nine Fruits.
And of course, the Spirit provides the power and motivation to grow the Fruit, and to bear the Flowers.
What do you think? Would you suggest a different list?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment