On a typical morning, Grumpy is always the one who rolls out of bed. If I am lucky, Grumpy has disappeared by the time I arrive at work, at which point Doc pops up from under the eaves and teaches my classes. After a good bout of hard work, skipping a lunch break as usual, Doc departs as the late afternoon slump appears on the horizon. Dopey is usually galloping along with the slump and hangs out until it's time to head home. Grumpy makes another appearance somewhere between Traffic Jam #3 and Traffic Jam #9 on the freeway, but departs again as I pull into the driveway of my favorite place in the world, HOME. When the phone rings after dinner, Bashful appears and eliminates any possibility of conversation on my part for the rest of the evening. Finally, as Bashful slips under the covers of a nice warm bed, Sleepy takes his place at the end of the day. If we continue to run at this pace all week long or I mow the lawn with too much vigor, Sneezy will show up and makes a snotty mess of things. And there you have it. No week goes by without at least one appearance by each of the dwarves.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing for the nine fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23):
Peace is usually a pretty easy fruit to keep around during the day. I only have a problem with him, when my husband and I are both too tired to be having a discussion, much less a fruitful argument.
Love is in and out almost every day, although he could be bigger and bolder in many of my choices, thoughts, and actions. I often have a knack for holding back on him for no other reason than his arch enemy -- selfishness, whispering in my ear.
Joy can be an elusive one, although she often shows up where I don't expect and I am always oh so glad to see her.
Faithfulness is a fruit I experiment with often, but I am guilty of Loyalty to the point of stupidity when I load up on too much of this fruit.
I struggle with Goodness and Kindness every single day. More, More, More is the name of that show, as the crazy pace of life often leaves these two fruits in the dust, lost and forgotten.
Gentleness is second nature when it comes to cats, dogs, birds, and other furry creatures, but try as I do to transfer this fruit to the human world, it is a continuing challenge to be gentle with the top of the food chain.
Self-control is like Love ... it's in and out almost every day. I believe in the importance of this fruit for my spiritual diet, but I am challenged by consistency of application.
That brings us down to the error on the Fruits-of-the-Spirit list. It must be a mistake, because there seems to be ongoing controversy on whether to call it patience, forbearance, or long-suffering. Maybe the best thing to do to resolve the rotating vocabulary on this fruit of the spirit is simply to eliminate it.
It's not that I have an ulterior motive in eliminating Patience from the List. No Sir. I am simply interested in resolving the difficulty in the use of the English language for the sake of clarity in Holy Scripture. Better to be clear than confuse the reader, right? Right.
Right. Now, let's move on. We've spent three minutes on this discussion and that's quite enough. Onto the next three minute conversation, before the next one and the next and the next and the next.
Who's that following me? Oh no .... It's the Pear. The Pear has it in for me. He's going to catch me so very SOON. Then, like it or not, I will have to be PATIENT!!
Beware of the Pear.
He can give you quite the scare.
Better to keep him out of your hair.
Author, author! Take a bow - this is awesome.
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