RELATIONSHIP

Most people readily picked up on the idea that I loved my wife when I would regularly take her out and about when she was confined to a wheelchair, while dealing with the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s.  And how did I know this?  Because people would stop us and tell me so…  Whether it was the Safeway we frequented near our little cluster home in our hometown in California, walking around the beautifully appointed landscape at the luxury apartment homes we first lived in after moving to North Carolina or in the little towns of Fuquay-Varina or Lillington near where we settled in the countryside and purchased our dream home… wherever we went someone would inevitably stop us and share their observations with us. 

I was told on numerous occasions, that Piper and I were the talk of the leadership team from the Hospice group that helped to care for Piper in her final year and a half.  To me… it was not as if I really did anything different or special.  I had loved her since the first days that we started dating and her getting sick didn’t change a thing… if anything… it increased my love and devotion toward her.  But in reality, I just did what I thought was the normal response of any husband toward the woman with whom they had a loving relationship with.  I was told by many of the health professionals that we worked with though, that my way of thinking was not necessarily the norm!

And you know… as I have continued to study about the Fruit of the Spirit, as outlined by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:22-23, I am becoming more and more convinced that my response, caused by my intimate and at “one” relationship with Piper, is the same type of response that our heavenly Father wants us to demonstrate in our daily lives… because of our personal, up close and at “one” relationship with His son Jesus Christ.  In this portion of scripture, the Apostle Paul teaches that,

“The fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you IS DIVINE LOVE IN ALL ITS VARIED EXPRESSINS:  JOY that overflows, PEACE that subdues, PATIENCE that endures, KINDNESS in action, a life full of GOODNESS, FAITH that prevails, GENTLENESS of heart, and SELF-CONTROL. (&) Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.”  (TPT/GW)

This particular portion of God’s Word has always had a special place in my heart, as I am reminded of it daily and the sweet memory associated with it… by the wall hanging of this verse, that Piper and I purchased from the old Christian bookstore that used to be in downtown Santa Rosa during the very first year of our marriage… way back in 1975.

It was part of a three-piece scripture-based, framed set that we put together and were able to buy for 50% off.  For some reason that event has been permanently etched upon my heart.  I vividly remember how excited we were about the purchase and the “hot” deal we got for what would become our first, personally picked-out wall decorations for our little apartment!

For years they hung together as a decorative threesome, but by the time we got into our last family home in 1998, they were split up with the two smaller frames hanging individually in the kid’s rooms and the larger one as the major decoration in Piper’s and my master bath.  Today the only one left hanging is the Fruit of the Spirit wall hanging that holds a predominate place in my study, over one of my favorite childhood pictures of my darling wife.  The large one eventually sustained some water damage while the other smaller frame is still packed away somewhere!

It is interesting to note, that although I’ve known this verse of scripture for years, taught on it and even wrote a Children’s Church song about it… I’ve never quite understood it until recently!  Like many of us, I have always thought of each of the Fruit as individual qualities or characteristics of a Christian that are activated as we may need them throughout our daily lives.  But the more I have been studying them over the past few weeks, the more that I am convinced that they are all highly dependent on and empowered by each other!

I guess you could say that they are all in a relationship with each other as an integral part of our individual, close-knit, intimate and highly personal relationship with Jesus!  And as in my loving relationship with Piper… come good times or bad… they are actively and purposely demonstrated in and through all of our daily and normal interactions with each other… as well as with those we come into contact with in our daily lives.  As a Christian… the Fruit of the Spirit is just an active part of who we are!

In The Poor Man’s Commentary, Robert Hawker wrote that the Fruit of the Spirit, “define the character of those born of God.”  The Popular New Testament states that the specific usage of the term “One ‘fruit,’ in distinction of the many ‘works of the flesh,’ indicates the unity of the spiritual graces which are comprehended in love.”  

Thayer’s Greek Definitions sums it up nicely when describing the fruit of ‘faith’ (in combination with the other parts of the ‘fruit’) by declaring that it is “the conviction of the truth of anything… and in the NT, of a conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things.”

So, they are not individual characteristics that we have to think about and put into use when things go south in our lives… but instead, an automatic flow of the grace of the Holy Spirit in just about everything we do!  The Popular New Testament goes on to say that “The fruit is produced by the grace of God” while the Geneva Bible Translation Notes explains that the fruit “are not the fruits of free will, but only as far forth as our will is made free by grace.”

Therefore, the participation and active demonstration of the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives is solely dependent upon our ever-increasing relationship with the grace of God and the working of the Holy Spirit in us.

The reason I never blinked when it came to the idea of me being the one to take personal care for my wife in her time of need (even though I received some harsh criticism for it), was due to the 39 years (at the time) of building a faith-filled relationship with God, in cooperation with a trusting, close-knit, very personal and intimate relationship with her.  My actions were simply a natural response to those two all-important relationships.  And believe me… during those last eight years of her earthly existence, there was never a moment when portions of each of the Fruit of the Spirit wasn’t working between us!

What about you?  How are the Fruit of the Spirit interacting within your daily life?

Have a great week, and as you do… Keep incorporating the Fruit of the Spirit in cooperation with your ever-increasing EXPECTATION of the Goodness of God in all that you do!