Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

• Galatians 5:22-23

So I weep, as Jazer weeps,
    for the vines of Sibmah.
Heshbon and Elealeh,
    I drench you with tears!
The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit
    and over your harvests have been stilled.

• Isaiah 16:9

“Every joy is beyond all others.  The fruit we are eating today is always the best fruit of all.”

• C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

Before I write my thoughts on this, let me give the sequence of events, in order.

• I read the quote from C.S. Lewis.
• I remembered that I had just bought a variety of fruits and berries.
• I thought, if I write about the joy of having fruits and berries, why not put some in a bowl and take a photo.
• I rinsed blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and cherries.
• I sliced the strawberries.
• I pitted the cherries.
• I took the picture.
• Then I thought, to have this snack more patriotic, I need something white.
• Ah!  I had leftover whipped cream from another dish that I made.
• Then I ate it without taking more pictures. No pictures with the cream in the fruit bowl is known as plausible deniability.
• Then I found that the only verses in the NIV with both fruit and joy are the two above.  The one from Galatians is obvious since Joy is a fruit of the Spirit.

So now, before I take a nap, I better finish what I haven’t really started.

The C.S. Lewis quote sparked a memory of more than one thing.  Even for the Presbyterians, they need to show those fruits of the Spirit more often.  Especially Joy!  Come on, Frozen Chosen!  Loosen up!  You can only be in self-control so long.

I have seen some of the Frozen Chosen work that Fruit called self-control so well that a nurse was called over to see if the guy still had a pulse!

I have no evidence, but I have heard rumors that a couple of Frozen Chosen died while sitting in the pew.  And no one noticed!  Okay, that was a bit of a stretch.  The pastor noticed about the third week.  Here these people were sleeping through his sermon with their eyes open three weeks in a row!  Two weeks?!  That’s commonplace, but never three weeks.

Okay, that’s about all the fun I can have without the Frozen Chosen taking me off the membership list.  Besides being frozen, they do not have much of a sense of humor.

And if I have the fruit salad in the photo again, I might eliminate the cherries.  I can eat a pound of cherries in a day easy, but it is hard work pitting eight of them, cutting them in half is part of the pitting.  When I eat them from the package, I pit them with my teeth and tongue.  That is much easier for some strange reason than using a knife.

Blessings to all the readers out there and enjoy both your Fruit of the Spirit and the Fruit from the grocery store.  (fresh from the field? Even better!)

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.