But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:22-23) One of the joys of being a Christian is when God the Holy Spirit prompts us to do things that we would not even think to do, but they are crucial to building a great life. A great life is great relationships (Matt 22:37-39), therefore, the Christian life is really a project in building great relationships

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:22-23) God the Holy Spirit wants to move in and through us to build our relationships in ways that are hard or impossible for us. He prompts us to let Him flow through us to meet needs and pursue a person; to focus on the positive instead of the negative in a situation; to bring order and harmony to a relationsh

One of the joys of being a Christian is when God the Holy Spirit prompts us to do things that we would not even think to do, but they are crucial to building a great life. A great life is great relationships (Matt. 22:37-39). Therefore, the Christian life is really one big project in building great relationships. It starts with our relationship with God, which He provided by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and continues as we learn how to build and grow the

In every relationship, there are good, bad, irritating, and delightful elements about it. We revel in the good and delightful elements of a person, and we always want to change the bad or irritating things about them. Usually, we want the rough places of a relationship to change right away, but that is not often possible. That's when God asks us for patience. Last week, I wrote another article about patience that you can read by clicking HERE. But as I got to thinking, I real

In my previous posts in the Spiritual Gardening series, I talked about how God has given each person nine relational gardens, and that our job is to cultivate crops of love, peace, patience, joy, and so on in each of the gardens. The amount of joy we experience in life is based on the fruit that we have worked with God to grow in these gardens. In case you missed it, you can click HERE to read it so you can have some context about what we are talking about. If you recall, the

I think we would all like to experience more joy in life. Do you agree? What would God have you do about growing joy in your life so that you can enjoy others and others can enjoy you? I believe that God does it by focusing our gaze; by focusing our attention on the good things. Everybody we meet is an amalgam of good, bad, weaknesses, strengths, negatives, and positives. In order to have joy, we have to narrow our focus on the good, the positives, and the strengths. Think ab

Scripture suggests that we can look at our lives as a set of relational gardens (John 15:1-17; Matt. 22:37-39). I have identified nine such "gardens" that when tended to in the proper way, lead to an abundant, full, and prosperous life, the first being our relationship with God, then ourselves, spouse (if applicable), children, work, church, money, friends, community, and enemies. If we want to have a healthy, joy-filled life, it is up to each of us to grow the fruit of the S

Recently, I have been very encouraged with the folks that I have been asked to coach by their pursuit, understanding, and listening to the whispers of God in this area of spiritual gardening. God is clear in Matthew 22:37-39, Galatians 5:22,23, and John 15:1-10 that we are to allow Him to grow the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. In my previous post, I talked about how God has given each person nine relational gardens, and that our job is to cultivate crops of love in each o

Many people have the wrong definition of a successful life, one based upon the world's measurements: piles of money, fame, power, beauty, possessions, and the like. I want to suggest that Jesus gave us a very different definition of success. In Matthew 22:37-39, he said the two greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In two short sentences Jesus tells us that success in life is filling our live