Against Such Things There is No Law

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;

against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

A few times this week, I was thankful for living my life as a Spirit-filled Christian. By that term, I mean that I realize I have no power to live a beautiful life on my own strength, so I roll out of bed each morning asking the Holy Spirit to live through me instead. Through Him, I can be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled. No excuses.

This daily way of life has strung together into weeks, months and years. The moments blur together and get lost in my memory. But then I have a week like this past one where I reap the results of living in such a way. I am re-filled with gratitude to God for how He transforms lives and am freshly motivated to keep going.

There is no law against extending the fruit of the Spirit.

One of my moments of gratitude:

I parked my car at work in a designated lot for employees, thankful to be grabbing the last open spot. A car pulled up behind me and the driver got out of her car and knocked on my window. “I have been waiting for an open spot for 15 minutes,” she explained, “Can you please move?”

In that moment, I had to decide: Who is going to run my life this second, the Spirit, or me?

I made the decision to let God respond through me. I made the decision to be kind.

I re-parked my car in a parking deck on the other side of the street. Wearing heels, I carried three large totes back across the street, up several flights of stairs and down a hallway to my office. I pondered this incident the whole way. Tangled thoughts like, “Why didn’t she just park across the street too, if getting to work was so important?” intermingled with, “Love is serving. I am serving her. This is what love looks like.”

Two hours later, I walked to a distant building to work in a room I have never worked in before. Upon entering, guess who was there? Yes, my parking lot acquaintance.

I was so grateful that I had let the Spirit run things instead of my knee-jerk reactions.

Against such things there is no law.

That woman has nothing bad to say about me at this time. My reputation for Jesus remains intact.

Our challenge as Christ followers…

We are awake 16 hours a day (if we get 8 hours of sleep). That equates to 960 minutes, or 57,600 seconds between each sunrise and sunset, and nearly half a million seconds each week. Each month we have over 1.5 million moments of opportunity to decide who is running our lives…God’s Holy Spirit, or us.

Truth is, I blew some of my opportunities this week with my husband and son. There were moments when my emotional knee-jerk reactions won out over the Spirit of God. But God was incredibly kind to let me experience these two instances that made me glad that I intentionally aim to live as a Spirit-filled Christian every minute of every day.

It’s the better way.

Not everyone is going to think my beliefs or perspectives make sense, but few will mind a person extending the fruit of the Spirit to them.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.  (Galatians 6:9)

Picture Explanation:   This is the last of the Alaska trip pictures for my blog followers. The final photo is how I felt about getting to see Orca whales up close, and now it also reflects how I felt about the two incidents described in this blog. Whew! I am happy every time I get to represent Jesus well. Let’s all live in a way that when people find out we are Christ followers, they aren’t surprised.

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