Today, we're going to take a posture of peace
by fully enjoying the fruit of the spirit
that has grown in the soil of our difficulties.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale.
Posture is a podcast that serves a short, audible fist bump
to remind you that God is in everything.
Together, we're gonna be emboldened
to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
In Galatians chapter five, verses 22 through 25, it says,
but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
Against such things, there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
with its passions and desires.
Since we live by the spirit,
let us keep in step with the spirit.
This week, I've been sharing clips of a conversation
I had with one of my spiritual mentors, Graham Cook,
and one of my favorite things that Graham teaches on
is the fruit of the spirit.
It's these fruits that reveal the nature of God to us.
Now, please don't let that truth pass you by.
God is not telling you to be gentle.
God is telling you, I am gentle,
and because of who he is,
you have access to all of those things as well.
Do you ever have seasons where you're just desperate
for people to be gentle with you?
I have, and unfortunately,
people and circumstances are not always gentle,
but God, he is always gentle with you,
no matter the people or the circumstances
that you're having to face,
and he's also kind and joyful.
Have you ever heard God laugh?
Here's something that adds to the beauty of all of this.
As we talked about in episode 44,
we are becoming transformed into who he is in this world.
Gentle, kind, faithful, joyful, patient,
just to name a few.
Now, a question that Graham often asks
those that he's mentoring is,
which fruit do you think the Lord
is wanting to develop you into right now,
in this season or in this circumstance?
And I'll share with you at the end of this episode
what I think the Lord is developing me into right now,
but first, here's a clip of Graham sharing more
about this transformational truth.
You know, he's always concerned
about bringing you into a fuller experience of who he is.
So that's really important to him
because he knows what's best for us.
And they're living in us because they wanna bring out
the best of them in us.
So the important thing is always to go in
before you go out.
So my favorite question is, Lord,
what is it you wanna do in me right now?
Because I don't wanna miss that.
That is relational learning at its best.
All your life situations are about empowering you
to become like Jesus.
You know, so if you have a really annoying person
in your life, you're probably learning patience, right?
Here's the thing is, you can't learn patience
when everything is going well.
A lot of the fruits of the Spirit are grown
in the soil of a situation that's difficult.
So how do you grow in kindness?
Kindness grows in the soil of a situation
where somebody says something really unkind to you
and you have a choice.
You can either move in the same spirit and like,
well, I know something about you, pal.
Or you can recognize, I need to respond
in the fruit of kindness.
So you have a great opportunity.
When everything you feel is against you,
the three people inside you are for you
and they overwhelm everything
because they're that incredible.
They will overwhelm everything outside,
but first, they need to overwhelm you
with how kind they are, with how good they are,
with how loving they are.
So Jesus, when he's teaching us love,
he teaches us love in the context of us loving God
and then loving other people the way that he loves us.
So he's saying, this thing is a cycle.
You receive love, you give love, and then you get more love.
You know, whatever you give to God comes back to you.
Whatever you pray for comes back to you.
practice in him stays with you. So yeah, it's a relational cycle that God uses. And I think
maybe one of the problems is we don't really get taught the ways of God often. You know,
how God thinks, how he sees, how he works, how he likes to do things. And he always has
a purpose in what he's doing. And sometimes when you're fixed on the situation, you're
not seeing the purpose first. So often you don't know how to respond. So we get scared,
we get worried, we get anxious, we get fearful, we get angry. We do all of that stuff. And
we're not practicing the presence of God in the fruit of the Spirit. I love that God has
brought everything inside of us. It's all available 24-7, right now.
God is always focused on bringing you into a fuller experience of who he is. Now currently,
I believe God is depositing and cultivating his joy in me, which is really exciting because
the Bible says that his joy is my strength. So I'm not only becoming more joyful, breaking
free of a somber existence and embracing wonder-filled delight. While that's happening, I'm also
becoming stronger. I so feel that right now. What about you? I would love to hear your
answer, so please leave a comment on which fruit God is highlighting to you in the season
that you're in. Which fruit do you believe that he's wanting to develop you into right
now? The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26-3. And in Hebrew, it is shalom
shalom, meaning complete wholeness. Nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are
in Jesus. Let's declare this together. Today, I am kept in perfect peace. With my whole
heart, I trust the Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole. Remember, friend,
you are a living testimony of Jesus' ultimate win. Not because of anything you did, but
because of what he did for you. With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus'
victory on display and Satan's defeat on replay.