Fruit Attracts

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

Apparently fruit-picking is considered an essential business: Dave took the kids cherry-picking a few weekends back. Masked and laddered, they brought back a whole tub of cherries. I remember going apple-picking every fall in Virginia: it was practically a seasonal rite, replete with the attendant apple donuts and pies. Fruit basically exist to spread the seeds of the species, but they do so by being irresistibly attractive: colorful, sweet, unique. 

Nouwen writes, “How does the Spirit of God manifest itself through us? Often we think that to witness means to speak up in defense of God. This idea can make us very self-conscious. We wonder where and how we can make God the topic of our conversations and how to convince our families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues of God’s presence in their lives. But this explicit missionary endeavor often comes from an insecure heart and, therefore, easily creates divisions. The way God’s Spirit manifests itself most convincingly is through its fruits: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ These fruits speak for themselves. It is therefore always better to raise the question ‘How can I grow in the Spirit?’  than the question ‘How can I make others believe in the Spirit?’” 

Fruit don’t convince; they attract. They don’t try; they just are. This is not to say we shouldn’t be intentional and strategic in sharing the gospel, but we sometimes too easily mechanize or automate in our minds what is actually mysterious and organic. We think it is up to us. But it is really up to the Spirit, and the most attractive thing he produces in us is something we can hardly machinate or even really be aware of in ourselves. Yet this fruit is what draws others, the way birds, insects, critters and people are drawn from all over. How can we grow in the Spirit?