Stuff in my head at the moment

Fruits of the spirit

Are they evident in my life right now? It struck me that I'm not entirely sure they do. In all honesty I think that makes sense because I'm not really feeling particularly holy and haven't really (if I'm honest with myself) made any efforts to change this.

I think this realisation came to me while I was listening to David Hoarth speak last week at OG. It seems stuck me that we talk alot about gifts of the spirit alot more in church than we do the fruits. Like we put more importance on the gifts. It seems to me like trying to run before we can walk. In my head it seems that the gifts should come after the fruits. How do I explain this? Like the fruits are the results, the produce of living a life that is open to the Holy Spirit. Gifts are such that come after that.

Maybe like life is a garden, holy spirit is the rain. Veggies then grow. Gifts are like being given a fork to help harvest the veggies. I dunno, that's my head anyway.

We were watching The Darjeeling Limited this evening, I really enjoyed it. Very good film. Something about it though made me think alot about faith church stuff. I can't put my finger on exactly what t was about the film, or maybe it was just my brain processing conversations from earlier in the afternoon, but it struck me, we need to stop talking in small groups. If we are a family and are to move forward as a family we need to be discussing things openly with each other.

It's so easy to have well meaning conversations, we may try our hardest not to be bitching, but even with the best of intentions if we are not praying about the things we discuss we are infact just talking. That doesn't getting anything done. If we're not talking openly and we're not praying about it, we're not moving and we're not getting (or asking for that matter) God's help and guidance in what to do.

Come, come, come, let us worship God with our hands held high and our hearts bowed down. When was the last time we sought to do that as a family. We need to do this, as a family, we must do this. Going back for a sec, thinking about the fruits

• love (agape);
• joy (chara);
• peace (eirene);
• patience (makrothumia);
• kindness (chrestotes);
• goodness (agathosune);
• faithfulness (pistis);
• gentleness (prautes);
• self-control (egkrateia).

As a family do we demonstrate them? Are we actually joyful? Forget having self control for a moment, do we have have joy? Simple question.

Peace. Are we peaceful? I don't mean not arguing with each other I mean do we have peace?

You see I feel as a small group within the family, we need to be focusing on these things. I feel we're getting too wrapped up in the finishing touches when I feel God is saying we need to be looking at ourselves first. I feel God is saying we need to be turning back to him to solves problems rather and meeting after meeting, talking about talking.

Dude, I think we need to repent and start doing things different.