FRUIT CHECK!!!

 

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness,  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  Against such there is no law.                                         Galations 5:22, 23. NKJV                

   Photo by Martin de Arriba on Unsplash

I attended a large university which at that time had a total of 30,000 students on the main campus and a couple of satellite campuses.  One evening I received a "random" call from a student who begged me to not hang up.  He was in a panic as he breathlessly shared that everybody he called just to have a conversation had hung up on him.  No one seemed to want to befriend him since his arrival to campus, so he felt invisible and desperate for a reason to want to live.  

He eventually calmed down.  Before the conversation ended,  he thanked me for taking the time with him, and told me that he had already decided prior to calling me that if I had hung up on him, he was going to the roof of his dorm to jump off.   He did not jump, and I never knew his name.

We all are so busy and self absorbed with our plans and fast paced lives that we often miss opportunities to be "Jesus with skin on."   What if we slowed down a bit, paid attention to the people the Lord sends into our paths, recognized them as ministry opportunities by taking the time to care.  Sometimes a person just needs to know that they matter.  My mind went to the prayer below.  What if this or some form of this became part of our prayers?

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

This prayer was first published anonymously but has been attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi because of his life spent helping people  May the words and sentiments of this prayer be embraced so that we don't miss opportunities to let the Christ in us be manifest.  Perhaps we should periodically ask the Holy Spirit to do a "fruit check" in our lives.

Blessings.

~CWP~