Lois Flowers

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

So the old Christmas hymn goes, and what a timely thought during these troubled and tumultuous days.

In recent months, I’ve read, heard and found myself thinking phrases like, “We all need to …” or,  “If only people who call themselves Christians would …” or, “It’s time for both sides to …”

I’m guessing most of these pleas for civility are well-intentioned, and probably borne out of frustration. But they remind me of a principle I’ve often told my girls over the years: “You can’t do anything about anyone else; all you can do is make sure you do what’s right.”

It applies here, I think. It starts with each individual person.

We can’t make anyone else feel or think differently, no matter how hard we try. But we can take care of our own selves. We can mind our own hearts.

How, though? What can we do?

Our country is facing complex problems, with solutions that are often difficult to discern and implement. How can one person—a homemaker from Kansas, a retiree from Arizona, a teacher from Oregon or an entrepreneur from South Carolina, for example—make any kind of material difference?

When I ponder this question, I keep coming back to a practice I began several years ago. My word of the year for 2015 was fruit, and as part of that focus, I began praying for the fruit of the Spirit—as individual attributes—every day. (You can read more about this here and here.)

This is not a quick fix—there are none of those. Growth takes time, and that includes spiritual growth. But if you are searching for something concrete and tangible that you can do, for your own self, that might help improve the world eventually, perhaps you could start here.

I don’t know how it works exactly, but there’s something about praying for yourself to be more loving, more patient and more kind that—over time—makes you think about it before you respond in ways that are the opposite.

You may not catch yourself before you snap at your kids, but once you do, you recognize what you’ve done and apologize. Your first inclination might be to fire off a passionate retort to someone on social media, but you think twice about it when you remember you just prayed for self-control and gentleness a couple of hours ago.

In some ways, I think it’s similar to praying for people with whom you’re angry. If you are truly bringing them before the heavenly Father on a daily basis and asking Him to bless them, it’s much more difficult to stay mad at them.

So it goes with praying for the fruit of the Spirit. As the Holy Spirit works behind the scenes in your heart to nurture these godly traits, it’s as if you somehow develop a vested interest in each one of them.

I’ve been doing this for more than five years, and I still have vast room for improvement. Some days, it’s as though I had never done it at all. Even so, deep down inside, I believe it’s made a difference.

I’m not trying to tell anyone else what to do. (There’s enough of that going around already, I think.) But I will throw out a gentle challenge. If you want to “be the change” in the world, perhaps you could try this for a month, three months, maybe even a whole year.

Every day, pray that God would grow the fruit of the Spirit in your heart. List them off, one by one. (See here for sample prayer.) You might not see progress for awhile, but eventually, I think you will.

You may even find, as I did, that when the month or year ends, you don’t want to give it up. You may discover it’s become a necessary spiritual discipline, one that keeps you pointed in the right track in your relationships and in your heart.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday, #HeartEncouragement and Grace & Truth.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash