This week I am preparing some sessions for a Church day away on Saturday. We will be looking at the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), so that is in my mind at the moment.

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

We are told that we should consume at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day as part of a healthy diet. Spiritually speaking we cannot bear the 9 different sorts of fruit unless we have consumed that too. We cannot give what we have not received.

[mixed metaphor alert]

There is an old joke about a man who was speeding at 100mph down the middle of the road. When stopped by the police he said that he was simply obeying what it said on his driving licence: “tear along the dotted line.”

The joke may be corny, but the middle of the road is sometimes the best place to be. Sometimes I have swerved to one side of the road and driven into the ditch: speaking of these as a set of self-improvement targets: attributes to work hard at. At other times, in order to avoid that ditch I have swerved too far off the other side of the road and suggested that as this is God’s work we can’t do anything to cultivate them. But while both are true, the right course is down the middle between them.

We need to pay our part in the process, but it is God’s Spirit at work in us who bears the fruit. We can no more force ourselves to be more loving than a gardener can force a plant to bear fruit. But (like a gardener) we can make sure that we are ready to bear fruit, we can tend the soil, we can ask God to change us, especially where we are particularly deficient.

A couple of verses further on Paul urges us to ‘keep in step with the Spirit.’ We tend the soil by our intention to walk closely with God, to live by his rhythm, consciously to align ourselves with him, prayerfully to listen to him and follow closely. Keeping in step means that we are in close contact, our lives are prayerful, our Bibles are well-worn, we see all that we do as an act of worship to Jesus.

Be blessed, be a blessing.