on love. {fruit of the spirit.}

 

i've been praying a lot lately about the fruit of the spirit. it's been a holy echo as of late surrounding my walk.

love. joy. peace. patience. kindness. goodness. 

faithfulness. gentleness. self control.

my first thought is that these are all attributes i want for my children. things i want to enstill in them. to teach them. to cultivate in them.

but how?

 it's a daunting task as a parent to think about teaching these intangible things to your children. i feel like, at the age my kids are at, i'm doing a lot of disciplining, and yes it's with love, but i'm not necessarily focused in on the loving on them part.

and that is so sad to me.

i'm not saying i want to stop disciplining and let them do whatever they want in an effor to "love" on them more. i'm saying i want to make them feel loved all. the. time. i want that to be part of my focus. and i want to teach them to love on others. 

teaching comes best with example, am i right?

right now, i'm reading jesus is ___ by judah smith. if you haven't read it, pick it up. it's amazing. it will change the way you view other people in your daily path. 

 the first section we went through talks about how Jesus is your friend. and a lot of being our friend is how much Jesus LOVES us. 

i mean, the gospel is:

"for God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." {john 3:16}

for God so LOVED..... HE is our PERFECT example.

do we love?

do i love?

not like Jesus does. not without reservation, hesitation or judgement. not with the undeniable grace & mercy & compassion that He shows throughout scripture. 

nope. by God's standards i don't love. 

at least not like i should.

so i had this thought.

what if i focused on the fruit of the spirit? 

what if i broke that scripture down. since i do have the Spirit in me, then, theoretically, i should have the fruit of the spirit oozing from me. right? 

but i question whether the world sees that from our family. from me. 

not only do i question whether the world sees it from our family, but i question whether my family sees it from me.

so, for the next month, i'm going to really focus in on loving others. i'm committed to seeing where the Lord is taking this for me. who He is going to bring into my path. i know He has already started this for me... and i'm reluctant because it's out of my comfort zone & unfamiliar, but i'm moving ahead because i know that's where He has directed me to go.

will you do it with me? 

what if we all looked for ways to love on others.... starting with our kids. our husbands. our parents. 

yesterday i posted something i wrote about a while ago.... about being a yes mom.

i've been convicted recently about being a yes wife.

rolling my eyes & huffing and puffing & saying 'no' has become my first instinct with my husband.

and that is not right.

and as i feel the Lord pressing on my heart to focus in on love, this week i'm going to start with my husband. 

how about you? where do you think you need to start?