Naked Fruit: Getting Past the Peeling

Look at the words. Just the words.

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.

When we focus on the words that compose the classic fruit of the Spirit, we pause. Something stirs inside us. Loving? Yes please! Patient? Absolutely! They’re attractive qualities. We want them. We want them in us, and we want them in the lives of those around us. We long for them in our days and our nights and in all the moments in between. But how? They seem impossible, unrealistic to grow in our everyday lives, much less the lives of our little ones.

I have a friend who habitually responds to any need with a ready, “I’ll be praying about that!” I marvel at her faith and her commitment. I mean her words—followed by her actions—just pop out of her very being. Me? I’m more likely to whine about how I have to wait in a stack of traffic for an unexpected forty-five minutes while doing errands or slip into frustration and entitlement when my husband doesn’t move his snack plate from the sink to the dishwasher.

Geesh. Most of the time, Elisa looks very little like Jesus. Can you relate?

We’re us. Women. Wives (some of us). Moms (some of us). On the run. In the trenches. Under stress. Daughters making our way. Growing a fruit-filled life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control seems beyond our grasp.

Maybe it’s because we think that growing such fruit is about being nice. And maybe, we think it’s all up to us to produce. Neither is true.

It’s not about being nice. The truth is that the fruit of the Spirit is about being like Jesus. Jesus was always loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle, faithful and self-controlled. But these qualities didn’t always wear the peeling of “nice” in His interactions. His love was acted out in telling a prostitute to stop sinning and religious leaders to quit making faith harder than God intended it to be. His kindness led Him to touch an outcast leper during a day when such an action was strictly prohibited. His peace put Him to sleep in a boat with disciples in the middle of a storm out at sea. Such moments don’t define “niceness.” But they were definitely fruit-filled. It’s not about being nice.

Neither is the fruit of the Spirit all up to us. It’s not our job to produce these qualities in our lives or in the lives of those around us. That’s God’s job: fruit production. The fruit of the Spirit grows when we let Him live these qualities in us and through us as we are growing in a relationship with Him.

Naked fruit is honest. We don’t have to dress it up to make it better. It admits, “I really can’t do any more today. I’m bushed. But I’d love to help out tomorrow.” It suggests, “A better time for me to commit would be in the early afternoon because then the kids are in preschool.” Naked fruit isn’t 24/7 availability to impossible expectations. But, drawing from a relationship with God, naked fruit does try—openly and sincerely.

Naked Fruit is about getting past the peeling of “nice” Christianity and getting down to the honest, simple truth: the fruit of the Spirit is about being like Jesus.

God makes it simple. We make it hard. We want to grow a life that matters, and He wants to grow such a life in us. That’s fruit: minus the peeling. Naked fruit.

Want a bite? I know I do!

–Written by Elisa Morgan. Used by permission from the author.