I Used to Pray for Patience… Then God Sent My Kids to the Grocery Store With Me

An image of a Bible and pear?

How the Fruit of the Spirit actually grows.

I stood in the cereal aisle losing my religion.Two kids fighting over Frosted Flakes.

One cart ramming my ankle.

A lady behind me sighing loud enough to wake the dead.

And there I was, “praying for patience” like an idiot who’d never read the fine print. God answered.

He always does.

Just not the way we expect. See, I used to think the fruit of the Spirit was a report card:

Love ✓ Joy ✓ Peace ✓ Patience … uh-oh. I treated Galatians 5:22-23 like a to-do list I could muscle through if I tried harder, smiled bigger, clenched my teeth tighter.

Then I learned the secret Paul tucked into one tiny word: fruit.

Singular. Not nine separate virtues I manufacture.

One life.

His life.

Growing in me the way sweet grapes grow on a vine that’s been grafted into living wood. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control: they aren’t trophies I earn.

They’re flavors of Jesus bleeding out of cracked places where I finally gave up performing.

• Joy showed up the night the doctor said “cancer.”

  
  

• Peace walked in when the bank account hit zero.

  
  

• Patience was born in that grocery aisle while my son screamed and strangers stared.

  
  

• Kindness slipped out when I forgave the person who didn’t deserve it.

  
  

• Self-control that’s still arrives late, but it’s coming. None of it felt heroic.

Most of it felt like dying.That’s the point. A branch doesn’t grunt and flex to produce grapes.

It just stays attached while the sap does its quiet, relentless work. Jesus said it plain:

“I am the vine; you are the branches… Apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Nothing.

Not one grape. So I stopped begging God to make me patient.

I am already attached to Him.

Ten minutes in the Word.

A whispered “Help” in the carpool line.

A desperate text to a friend when I want to tell them off.

Small, stubborn choices to stay connected. And slowly: sometimes painfully: the fruit comes.

Not because I’m awesome.

Because He’s alive in me. Today, right now, one piece of fruit in you probably feels shriveled.

Maybe it’s patience.

Maybe it’s joy.

Maybe it’s gentleness and you just yelled at your spouse this morning.Good.

Dry branches get the most sap. Stay attached.

The Gardener is ruthless with the pruning knife, but He’s gentle with the wounded places.

He’s not in a hurry.

He’s after vintage wine, not grocery-store juice. So here’s the only question that matters today: Are you still connected to the Vine?

One prayer.

One verse.

One “I’m sorry.”

One deep breath when you want to explode. Do the small thing that says, “I’m staying.”

He’ll do the growing.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,

I’m tired of fake fruit.

Cut away everything in me that’s plastic and perform-y.

Keep me grafted, breathing You.

Grow Your life in my life: real love, stubborn joy, unshakable peace, patience that survives grocery-store meltdowns.

I stay.

You produce.

Make me taste like You.

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New Hope Church of God

1250 Waggoners Gap Rd

Carlisle, Pa

(717) 241-5544