The End Result

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

This is gonna sound crazy... but I absolutely LOVE that God knows I can be very hard-headed at times. I don't mean the deliberately rebellious kind - I'm talking about not getting it the first few times... (sometimes not the first few dozen times). I'm not a stupid woman, but I can get very busy! How 'bout you? Do you ever let yourself get so busy you don't make the connections?

Today, I was reminded of one of the stories that makes its way around the Internet 2 or 3 times a year. I'm sure you've read this particular story. It's the one about the mother and daughter - the daughter is having a really tough day and doesn't understand why she has to go through so many trials. So the mom suggests making a cake together and the daughter is all for it. In the process, the mother offers her daughter a taste of each of the ingredients by itself, and of course, the daughter refuses and is repulsed by the idea. After all, who wants to eat flour or baking powder, oil or vanilla extract, or even cocoa powder by itself? Yuck... but when you whip all that together - leaving nothing out - and combine it into a confined space with plenty of heat, you WILL want the end result.

Well, we all want to walk in love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. However, just like you can't be victorious without a battle, or be an overcomer without having something to overcome, how are we going to know peace unless we experience turmoil? How will we know long-suffering (the King James version for forbearance) unless we have suffered long and still walked in His peace? We cannot possibly know faithfulness unless we have been tempted to be unfaithful. 1st Corinthians 10:13 NLT reads, No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

I don't like battles. I don't like struggling or fighting to overcome. I abhor unfaithfulness. I hate turmoil, but I love God's peace. I love the compassion for my fellow man, but that has come only by adversity and long-suffering and overcoming... You get the picture, right? These kinds of things are why David could write, Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you! And why Paul writes in Romans 8, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“ For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

So, when God whips all of it together - leaving nothing out - and then confines us and applies the heat, we WILL rise to the occasion... and the end result WILL be worth it.

Prayer:

Father,
            I want accomplished in me what You want to accomplish in me. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen