All About the Fruit

All about the fruit. I’ve heard this thousands of times before, but it’s a good reminder. When my attention span allows me to sit and read a book long enough I can really soak up some new insights, or at least hear something that needed repetition anyway. I’ve been reading Christine Caine’s book Stop Acting Like a Christian- Just Be One.  She’s a great communicator and some of the concepts in the book can be hard to grapple with.

My dad has been a Music Minister in Baptist churches for about 30 years and I’ve been in church every time the doors were open.  As a person who has been involved in ministry my entire life, since birth pretty much, it can become easy to focus on the activities. Since middle and high school I have been on leadership teams, a small group leader, lead worshipper, youth/child mentor, creative teams, and singer on a high profile music group in college. This puts you in front of people alot which constantly keeps your character in check (or at least it should), but it also creates the obvious- LOTS of activity.

It comes in waves- we’re human. And I have found that some periods in my life I can get so caught up in doing, instead of focusing on being. Lots of activity in the Lord’s name, but at risk for my spiritual core to become weak. This sums up the book. Over the years I’m reminded of something Pastor Daryl has said- Worship on Sunday should merely be an outflow of what’s already happening on the inside during the week. A celebration of who God is and what He’s been doing in your life internally everyday.  Sometimes we can even focus on gifts of the Spirit when our soul need some work. My spiritual core needs strengthening just like any other muscle of my body.  My gifts and talents that I think I have cannot be a good measure of my “success” as a Christian.

Christine says it like this:

When the gifts of the Spirit on a person’s life are greater than the fruit of the Spirit in a person’s life, that life will begin to crumble…Regardless of how strong and whole we think we are, we must remember we’re all on the journey to Christlikeness and Christian maturity.

Other symptoms like unhealthy relationships, depression, addictions and insecurities surface when my inside doesn’t match my outside. And thus that maturity declines.

I want to be all about the fruit. I don’t want try hard to act like a Christ-follower. I will be honest, it’s hard sometimes, certain areas more than others. But I believe the natural outflow of living out these fruits of the Spirit will simply allow me to be one.

So what about you? Are you all about the fruit or the activity? Your gifts or the outflow of daily fruit?

Dinner FAIL

I’ll be honest, in our almost 6 year marriage (coming June 21st and I expect gifts!), I have not been the most proactive at some of the “wifely duties”. It was hard for me to make myself cook, clean and do laundry. I don’t know what it was. Sometimes I just didn’t want to do it, sometimes it was laziness I guess, sometimes busyness was my excuse and sometimes I just don’t know why. Not that it was always like this. I did cook some and have a few dishes I would always make, but that came in waves. (Just kidding on the gift thing)

Since moving into our own place I committed myself to being more “domestic” and planning meals in advance. Plus it’s better on your budget and health. I feel like doing the typical wifely chores is a necessity but also says I want to serve and honor my husband. Plus, if I don’t get into a habit or some kind of routine now, what the heck will happen when we have kids??

SO. Onto my Dinner FAIL of this week.

Don’t get me wrong, it tasted good, just didn’t quite look the way it was supposed to. It was supposed to be Marinated Tangerine Beef from BigOven.com. And I used freshly squeezed oranges and spices. Should’ve looked like this-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had good intentions to shop thrifty. How can I make this meal as inexpensive as possible? Some things you can’t skimp on. Instead of buying real steak, I bought 2 frozen packages of philly steak. But duh, you know what happens when you cook philly steak? Yes. It pulls apart and shreds as it’s cooked. Which is the whole point of philly steak. So it ended up looking like this-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I got to the angel hair pasta part and realized I didn’t have a big enough pot to cook enough for the 2 of us and a guest. So I called Chad and told him to pick up noodles ANYWHERE. Somebody should have some. Got Tofu Pad Thai entree. Not to mention his car broke down before on the way, and our guest had to pick him up, stop by for noodles, and get home.

So picked out the tofu, put the shredded beef on top of  the noodles, and we had Marinated Tangerine Mush with pasta. Tasted plenty orange-y although I think most of the flavor was in the noodles…Our single friend loved it though. Go figure. On the other hand, my meatloaf and homemade mashed potatoes Thursday night was a hit…