Hello,
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
(Galatians 5:22,23)
I live in the promise that God is raising up in me the fruit of
the Spirit. Like an orchard tender, God is at work in me feeding me,
pruning me, sheltering me, and watering me so that the fruit of which the fifth
chapter of Galatians speaks is harvested in my life.
Last week I was going home from work. My trek home is a 23
mile ride on a two lane road over a ridge, Chestnut Ridge, where the left and
right turns and the rising of the road do not provide any place to pass a slow
moving vehicle. So it was last week that I got behind a semi-truck that
was trying to make its way over my commuting route. The operative word
was “trying.” I don’t know if the driver had traversed this route
before. If he had, I wasn’t quite sure why he was trying it again, and if
he had not, I suspect that he wouldn’t try it again. His apparently fully
loaded semi struggled to make it up the steep inclines. It consistently
brushed against low hanging branches that were not accustomed to the trailer’s
height. And it rode its brakes down, creating smoke and the smell of burning
rubber.
I have a confession to make. I did not feel sorry for the
driver. As I averaged something less than 10 miles per hour on most of my
ride home, my sympathies did not lie in the driver’s struggles. Rather my
thoughts we at best slightly unkind. I broke the 8th Commandment many a time as we
slowed down to a stop around corners and bends, not seeking to see the driver’s
decision to take this route in the kindest manner. “Did he not know that
there would be cars behind him who actually needed to get somewhere?”
“Why didn’t he check with someone who knew the area before taking on this
route?” “Why isn’t there a telephone number on the back of his trailer
asking me to call to let someone know what I thought of his driving?”
Simmer….Steam….BOIL!
Obviously, God is not finished working on me. “The fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” So, I’ll be in church this
Sunday so that God can tenderly tend me. Dig around in the dirt in my
life and loosen up my hard and self-focused heart. Splash water around
that flows from the forgiveness and mercy of Baptism. Prune away the bug
infested branches, branches infested with bugs with a voracious, life killing
appetite. And feed me with divine food, food that the world cannot give.
When I was in college I remember seeing a poster in one of my
friend’s rooms that said, “Please be patient. God isn’t finished working
on me yet.” Thank God that God doesn’t give up working on me. Thank
God that God’s patience with me is greater than my patience with others or
myself. Thank God that God’s love for me causes him to jump into the mud
and pull me out, over and over again. Thank God that God is a master
orchard tender, a tender of the orchard in which you and I are divinely
planted.
So, let me invite you to come to church this Sunday, and
discover the tender tending of the master orchard tender…the one who is
determined to harvest in your life love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…the fruit of the Spirit.
Consider the wonder of what your life will be like when God produces a bumper
crop in you and me, and until he does, God will not finish working on us.
Thanks be to God!
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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