But God’s Spirit participated in the creation of the world
Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God [plural] created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at the fruit of the Spirit as Paul lists the qualities of agape love in Galatians 5:22-23. Since we remembered and celebrated last Sunday (Pentecost) the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the believers in Jerusalem, it seems fitting that we continue deepening our understanding of the Holy Spirit.
Also, I’m interested in this topic because of the book I’m writing for kids, hoping through story to communicate more about the Trinity than they typically learn in Sunday School. Not that I “understand” this mystery!
The Trinity is present in Scripture from the very beginning. The name for God used in the creation account in Genesis 1, Elohim, is plural. And immediately, the Spirit is singled out, hovering over formless, empty darkness (1:2). Then Elohim said, “Let there be light” …
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) heartening poem “God’s Grandeur,” referencing Genesis 1:2, could have been written today.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.
God of Wonders by Steve J. Hindalong and Marc Byrd, Third Day
Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Proverbs 16:32 Better to have self-control than to conquer a city.
Proverbs 25:28 A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.
I’m writing today in lovely Meridian, Idaho, remembering the impact on me of previous experiences in this beautiful state and their influence on Treasure Hunt 1904, book two of the Cally and Charlie historical fiction series. My sister Jan and I are here for a few days visiting our sister Marsha and brother-in-law Vance. I’ve not been here before in June. The flowers are stunning.
Marsha’s roses
The themes of Treasure Hunt 1904 directly relate to the final virtue in Paul’s description of agape, the lovely fruit the Spirit produces in our lives when we give him freedom to garden our hearts.
Self-control, translated “temperance”—moderation, self-restraint—in the KJV, is enkrateia in Greek, derived from the word kratos, which means strength. Like praos (see the last blog about gentleness), enkrateia is a strong word. It calls us to the right use of power. That power, as we know, is the operation of the Spirit of God in our lives, which we will recognize and celebrate this Sunday, Pentecost.
Along with the other virtues, gentleness calls us to choose how we treat others. Enkrateia reminds us we have the ability and responsibility to choose how we manage ourselves, circling us back to “Love others as you love yourself,” as Jesus taught us (Matthew 22:39). The Spirit empowers us to do both with godliness (God-likeness, the God who is love) as we practice agape.
Paul uses enkrateia (as a verb): we must discipline ourselvesto win the race of life. Not to win temporary earthly rewards, but an eternal prize: God’s “Well done, faithful servant” (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Philippians 3:12-14; Matthew 25:21).
So, what’s the connection with Treasure Hunt 1904? Using the motifs of a multi-layered treasure hunt and of water (see John 7:38-39), so critically important to transform into fruitfulness the fertile deserts of Idaho, we see Cally grapple with the wounds of trauma in her life (book one), emerging from the grief and paralysis of victimhood into proactive purpose. As she grows into acceptance of the love the Malcomson family offers her, Cally begins to recognize her own power. She can make choices for herself, rather than being controlled, for good or ill, by others.
This book also includes scenes of the devastating, ongoing impact of previous decades of misuse of power, sometimes, tragically, in the name of God, as western settlers and the U.S. government claimed a “manifest destiny” over the lives and territory of native Americans and others. Is not this false equivalence, still plaguing the world today, a breaking of the third commandment and of Jesus’ command to love others as he loves us?
Pentecost Sunday initiates the liturgical season of “ordinary time.” Ordinary, for you and me and all followers of Jesus, means practicing the wonderful fruit of the Spirit, in the agape love of the Father, empowered by Jesus’ conquest of sin and death by his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection. “Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights.. your faithful service is an offering to God” (Philippians 2:15-17).
In ordinary time, let’s shine! Let’s bear fruit that adorns the world with joy.
Holy Spirit, today I offer you freedom to grow the good fruit of agape love in my heart, in all its dimensions. Pull out the weeds, heal the wounds, rebuild healthy boundaries, and water the fertile soil of God’s love. Amen.
But God’s gentleness is rooted in power June 2, 2025
Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Matthew 11:29 Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart.
John 13:3-5Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. …
I love seeing strong people treat others gently. Don’t you? For me, this exhibits true strength, the emotional security that allows them to respect, care for and protect others, rather than indulge a need to show off how powerful they are. It tells me they have experienced and embraced the healing of agape in their own hearts.
Shutterstock: Ground Picture
Over time, “meekness,” the word the KJV uses to describe this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, has come to represent weakness rather than strength. But praos (or praus), is rooted in strength and is a fruit of power: the ability to choose a humble position in order to bless others. Praos is the gentleness we see so clearly in Jesus’ life and teachings.
Jesus chose to give up his divine privileges and took the humble position of a slave (Philippians 2:6). “He could have called ten thousand angels,” as the old song says, to free him from the suffering of the cross. He “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered” (1 Peter 2:23). He had the courage to live in poverty, to touch a leper, to defend women, to elevate children, to enjoy the company of “sinners,” to break all kinds of cultural taboos in order to show us what God’s love is like. His gentleness can still melt our defensiveness today.
“The greatest among you must be a servant,” Jesus taught (Matthew 23:11). In his upside-down Kingdom, authority must be used in humility rather than flaunting one’s power over others (Matthew 20:25-27). “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
Holy Spirit, please help us to learn from Jesus to use the power of gentleness within agape to bless others as he did. Guard and heal our hearts from the insecurity that generates pride. Generate in us the humble strength that comes from knowing ourselves beloved, our own needs tenderly cared for.
Jesus understands what praos sometimes costs us. “By his wounds you are healed. Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:21-25).
Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith [many translations say faithfulness instead of faith], gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Lamentations 3:22-23 The faithful love [hesed] of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
“Great is Thy Faithfulness,” we sang at my dad’s funeral, his favorite hymn. “Morning by morning, new mercies I see.” God’s faithfulness anchored him through incredible challenges and trials, even through failures.
And Dad’s death was just the beginning of his story. After his death, we sibs let our imaginations fly as we pictured him in Heaven with all the time in the world to indulge his many passions and interests. Why could we do this? Because God’s faithfulness is ETERNAL. It doesn’t stop here.
“One day at a time” has been my instinctive response when people ask me how I survived the Karis years. “Sometimes one hour at a time. Counting on God’s faithfulness, his manna for this one day.” Thinking about an elusive “tomorrow” was too overwhelming. I gripped God’s faithfulness for this moment, this challenge. And then the next one. I lived this way for 30+ years.
Karis’s move to Heaven–I’m so curious about what she’s been up to there in her ongoing experience of God-s faithfulness!–didn’t automatically change me. Living intensively in the present, without margin in my life for worrying about the future, became so habitual that for better or worse, it’s with me still. I’m able to engage with this morning, or today—maybe that stretches out now to thinking about this week. But I plan for and set personal longer term objectives in only the vaguest of terms, such as “I want to publish three books this year, so I’ll have them to take to homeschool conventions next spring.”
(Unless I see that my lack of planning will negatively impact others. That somehow feels different, requiring more detailed attention to “how” something could be done.)
“How exactly will you accomplish this?” my husband asks of my vague desires. He wants a Plan, as do our mission leaders. I’m immediately flooded with stress and a compulsion to retreat, to give the whole thing up. I think, “If God wants me to do this, he’ll show me how.” But my ideas about what I want to do aren’t the most important thing. I need to stay flexible to understand what God is asking of me on any given day.
Is that the kind of faith Paul is talking about? Or is it irresponsibility; just an excuse handily available (principally to myself) if I don’t reach my “goals”? The jury is out.
Vine’s says pistis, the word Paul uses in Galatians 5:22, is used in the New Testament always of faith in God or Christ. It’s not faith in myself or faith in other people or circumstances. It’s not even faith in God’s promises. It’s persistent trust in God’s faithfulness, rooted in personal surrender to him, himself.
For me, this is freedom. It’s not all up to me. The weight of the world is on HIS shoulders, not mine. I just have to do my wee part.
Here’s the cool thing: even faith in God’s faithfulness is not something I have to generate. It’s something the Spirit produces in me.
My part is giving him space in my soul to do his work. And then letting his faithfulness motivate me to live faithfully.
Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Luke 6:35-36 [Jesus said] Love your enemies! Do good to them. … Then you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.
An act or word of kindness, especially when undeserved or unexpected, can instantly move me to tears.
It can be as thoughtful as my husband washing and putting away the dishes to ease my way when I came home exhausted from an intense day.
It can be as generous as a friend paying me for work I would have been delighted simply to do for her, meeting a need I had expressed to no one.
It can be as compassionate as a friend saying, “Of course you feel this way today,” instead of judging me for a wave of grief for my daughter triggered by a certain date on the calendar.
It can be as merciful as the judge in traffic court reducing my penalty for speeding.
It can be as gentle as my five-year-old granddaughter placing her hand on my shoulder as I lay on the couch on her home with a migraine, saying “I hope you feel better soon, Grammy.”
It can be as gracious as a friend speaking well of me to a new acquaintance.
All of these expressions fit within chrestotes, the characteristic of love in Galatians 5:22 most often translated kindness or gentleness.
When have you most recently experienced or practiced chrestotes?
Critical, unkind judgments and words seem to appear frequently in our political and social discourse. What if we Christ-followers intentionally turn this around? Might our Spirit-kindled kindness spark more gentleness in each one of our spheres of influence?
An old song comes to mind. Perhaps you remember this! Here’s more info about this 1912 song.
Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Colossians 1:11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all God’s glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy.
“What? It won’t arrive for two weeks!?”
This was my reaction when I recently ordered a birthday gift for a person I love. I own my part in our impatient society.
But patience with delayed gratification isn’t what Paul is talking about in Galatians 5:22.
Since the gift arrived, two more weeks have passed without me actually placing the gift in my friend’s hands. Her birthday was in April! I finally gave it to her yesterday.
My forgetfulness required patience on the part of my friend—not patience regarding the gift itself—she didn’t care about that—but loving patience with me in my impatience with myself.
This relational patience as a dimension of love is what Galatians 5:22 is about.
This week I’ve been deliberately noticing my own impatience. Here’s one example: I noticed I was frustrated when I realized my book The Giggly Bug might not be out by the end of May. Yet I hadn’t fully considered the impact on my publisher of the unexpected death of the person who had been scheduled to put my book together, a beloved man who had worked there for thirty years, who held the company’s history in his mind and heart.
My impatience became relational.
And their response? Out of love for me, they doubled up on my book so it can be out by the end of May—in fact, they sent me the proofs yesterday afternoon. I deeply appreciate the patience of the folks at EA Books, since I’m on an unending learning curve. While professional, they prioritize their relationships.
Until I started deliberately noticing my impatience, I might have thought I’m a patient person. Now I realize how much I need God’s power (glorious power, Paul says!) to strengthen me in my practice of love manifested in patience.
Please, Holy Spirit, grow more agape patience in my soul.
I think this is interesting:
Two Greek words are most often translated as patience in the New Testament. Hupomone is endurance under trials and undeserved affliction. Makrothumia (usually translated in the KJV as “longsuffering”) is self-restraint in the face of provocation, especially by other people. Colossians 1:11, quoted above, uses both words, translated in the NLT as endurance (hupomone) and patience (makrothumia).
In Galatians 5:22, Paul uses makrothumia. Vine’s says this kind of patience “does not hastily retaliate or punish.” It’s the opposite of both anger and despondency. It’s imbued with both mercy and hope.
Makrothumia has to do with our relationships. Hupomone relates more to resilience.
So, this reference surprises me: “Be patient (makrothumia) as you wait for the Lord’s return” (James 5:7). I would have expected hupomone in this context. Could James be more concerned about how we treat one another than about our endurance through suffering while we wait for the Lord to make everything right?
“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient (makrothumia) with each other, making allowances for each other’s faults because of your love” (Ephesians 4:2).
Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
2 Corinthians 10:3-5, 8 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty [dunamis, Acts 1:8]weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. … Our authority builds you up; it doesn’t tear you down.
A friend recently spent several days investing in a historically and potentially fraught family situation. When I asked her how it went, she said, “I decided my mission was to ‘wage peace’ as Lauren challenged in her sermon.” (This is the sermon I recommended to you in my last post.) By God’s grace, my friend was able to see wonderful results from her time waging peace.
Yesterday, Josh Bennett followed up on Lauren’s sermon, discussing the enemies we are fighting. You can hear his remarkable sermon using the same link—it should be posted today. I know I’ll be re-listening to both, since they resonate so clearly with how I want to live and grow. The “warfare” we face is impossible without the Spirit’s action on our behalf and without the fruit of the Spirit as Paul elaborates in Galatians 5:22-23.
“Fruit” in this passage is singular, not plural. We can say there is one fruit, agape love. The other virtues describe the Spirit’s love. In the last blog, I talked about joy. God’s love is joyful.
God’s love is also peaceful. How then can I associate it with warfare?
The response is counter-cultural, the dramatically different value system that Josh calls us to. This peace is eirene: agreement and harmony among parties, with a resulting internal sense of wellbeing. Loving ourselves and others is to live in concord with God, aligning ourselves with him, with his values and priorities. When you listen to Josh’s sermon, you’ll see how radically different this is from our culture and the way most people think about life and relationships.
When we’re centered in God’s love for us and for others, we will experience internal wellbeing that allows us to “wage peace” nondefensively. Our energy is freed to look outward in blessing rather than being preoccupied with our own needs. I’m sure you’ve experienced, as I have, the wounding that comes when we try to meet our own needs and ambitions through manipulation, domination, or other kinds of dishonoring of other people. When instead we “wage peace” in God’s way, empowered by the Spirit, we have the chance to see healing instead of destruction of our relationships.
And when we’re in harmony with the Lord, we aim not to align others with us, but with God. We desire that they experience God’s love, his healing, his direction, his—yes—his peace.
Counter-cultural. Not my way. Not the world’s way. The Kingdom way.
Luke 20:35-36, 38 [Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:27] Jesus said, “In the age to come, those raised from the dead will never die again. … They are children of God and children of the resurrection.… He is the God of the living not the dead, for they [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] are all alive.“
Romans 8:10-11, 14, 17 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. … For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. … And since we are his children, we are heirs of God’s glory.
Did you know it’s still Easter?
In the ancient church calendar, Easter is celebrated for fifty days, until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the early believers. Forty days into Easter (this year, on May 29), always therefore on a Thursday, comes Ascension Day, when the church remembers Jesus leaving Earth and returning to his Father in Heaven, while promising: He will come back! And the Holy Spirit of God keeps that promise alive within us.
It’s a wild, joyful, sacred dance choreographed by the Trinity, for us, his children, heirs of his glory.
The season of Easter—not just one day, but seven weeks—gives us the chance to soak in, to absorb, the mystery of life overcoming death. Time to ask and to ponder, What does it mean to be children of the resurrection, heirs of God’s glory?
What does this mean to you, today?
And what does Paul mean by this breathtaking sentence: The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you?
We’re each part of the story shared by humanity on this May 13, 2025, a story in which one man’s name dominates the news that we in this part of the world wake up to each morning. A story in which, as Paul puts it, we groan over the impact of death and decay, sin and suffering—the “bondage of corruption” as it’s translated in the KJV (Romans 8:20-23).
At the same time, we’re part of a much bigger and more important story, a story with a gloriously happy ending.
And just as we’re breathing a sigh of satisfaction as we turn the last page of this story, that everything has come right, we’ll realize that ending is just the beginning of an even bigger story, one imbued with freedom and joy and life.
So, one thing being a child of the resurrection means to me today is that I’m not a victim, neither of my own challenging circumstances or of anyone else’s attitudes or actions. What the world is going through, matters. Especially for those whose around the world whose very lives and livelihood are under threat, it matters a lot. Sooner or later, perpetrators of bullying and abuse will be held accountable for the suffering they have inflicted. It matters.
Yet this is not the end of the story. You and I are not victims. We’re heirs of God’s glory!
Last Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter, was Good Shepherd Sunday. I invite you to listen to Lauren’s encouraging sermon.
Isaiah 43:2 When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
Lamentations 3:22-23 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning.
By Earth time, Karis would have turned 42 today. I woke up with the song Goodness of God in my head:
I love You, Lord For Your mercy never fails me All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands From the moment that I wake up, Until I lay my head Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
And all my life You have been faithful And all my life You have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
I love Your voice You have led me through the fire In the darkest night You are close like no other I’ve known You as a Father; I’ve known You as a Friend And I have lived in the goodness of God
And all my life You have been faithful And all my life You have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
‘Cause Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me With my life laid down, I’m surrendered now I give You everything ‘Cause Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me [and you, too]
But Jesus sees right into our hearts Lenten/Easter question #20
John 21:15-19 After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” …
Normally, Pittsburgh weather is what my grandson Caleb calls “boring.” The main question we have to ask at this time of year while nature is bursting into all its bright colors is whether it will be raining or whether we’ll be blessed with a few coveted hours of sunshine.
Tuesday, though, broke the mold. No, not a hurricane or even a tornado, as I explained to Caleb–I was at their house when the storm hit. But we had wind gusts up to 80 mph that killed three people; according to our local news:
Tuesday evening’s storm left a wake of destruction in the Pittsburgh area. Large oak trees toppled from the strength of the winds and roofs were torn off of buildings. Duquesne Light said restoration across the area could take five to seven days, calling the event “unprecedented.”
Over 400 workers rolled into town yesterday to aid Duquesne Light with restoration efforts. We were without power for only 24 hours. The main thing we have to show for it is this “storm art.” Pretty cool, eh?
For our daughter Rachel’s family, though, the adventure is ongoing. “Fireworks!” my granddaughter Liliana exclaimed looking up at the electric pole by their house as she and her sister arrived home from preschool in a torrent of rain, with downed wires on the sidewalk. We hope some of the emergency workers will make it to their neighborhood today. Unfortunately, everything in their house is electric, including their stove.
Here’s what the electric pole right by their house looks like, with the top section snapped off and lying precariously on other wires:
Photo by Rachel’s husband Brian
Needless to say, they’re not parking by their house right now!
All this pales before the devastation, self-inflicted, Peter experienced after Jesus’s arrest in Gethsemane. Just that evening he had declared, “I’m ready to die for you.” Instead, he buckled at three suggestions that he was associated with Jesus. Luke tells us Peter went out and wept bitterly (22:62).
The time has finally come, in this last chapter of John, for Peter to confront his cowardice. Just as he had denied Jesus three times, Jesus asks him, reverting to his old name, the name used in Luke 5, “Simon, do you love me?”
Interestingly, Jesus asks Peter twice, “Do you agape me?” Agape is supernatural, grace-filled, absolutely dependable love. But Peter responds, “Yes, Lord, you know I phileo you.”
The third time, Jesus accommodates Peter. Apparently, he recognizes phileo (brotherly or family love) is all that Peter is capable of claiming at this moment. Jesus has made his point. He has steadfastly loved Peter with agape love through thick and thin, and this is what he wants Peter to grow into.
Agape is the love Jesus shares with his Father. In his prayer for his disciples recorded in John 17, Jesus says, “I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love (agape) for me will be in them” (John 17:26). Jesus wants all of his followers—you and I included—to experience and practice agape.
In his little book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis delves into the diverse nuances we miss because four different Greek words are all translated into one English word “love.” At the same time this wordplay is going on between Jesus and Simon Peter, though, another dynamic is at play. Jesus has been preparing Peter to lead. What will Peter’s leadership look like, when Jesus is no longer around to be the leader?
Jesus sums it up in two simple phrases: “Feed my lambs,” the Shepherd tells him (can you feel the affection?) and “Take care of my sheep.” “Be like me in this way too,” I hear Jesus speaking into Peter’s brokenness. “Care for others in the same gentle, committed, insightful, sacrificial way I am caring for you right now.” THIS is leadership in the Kingdom (see Matthew 20:25-28), the same servant love Jesus demonstrated in washing the disciples’ feet.
It’s a reprise not just of Luke 5, but of John 13 after Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, just before Jesus warns Peter he will deny Jesus. “I am giving you [all the disciples] a new commandment: Love (agape) each other. Just as I have loved (agape) you, you should love (agape) each other. Your love (agape) for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Debra Kornfield 