Enabling the Fruits of the Spirit

GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.

Lost count of the number of times that I have read the above verse and then prayed for God to manifest these fruits in my life.

This time, God reminded me that if I want to see fruitfulness in this area of my life, I need to "proactively enable" it. Not that I don't need to ask God for them anymore, but rather that I need to do my part by consciously behaving and responding to situations in life in ways that exhibit the qualities of the Spirit.

I need to alter my behaviour in areas that is contrary to the fruit of the Spirit, and I need to ask God to reveal to me even the blind spots in my life.

To start off, I thought these are the areas I need to work on:

Love - I need to love my family more; I need to love my wife and kids more. I need to remove the resentment grudging spirit in me that surfaces all too often when I think of the sacrifices I need to make for them...I mean, if God were to do the same, He wouldn't have sent Jesus to die for us, would He?

Joy - There needs to be more joy in my spirit. I need to give thanks more and have that attitude with me all day long. I need that perspective in my life that I am indeed blessed and that God loves me and is with me. I need to focus much less on the negatives in life.

Peace - I need to spend more time (that is a challenge) to inculcate the inner peace that is so often missing in the midst of screaming kids, crazy schedules and unending obligations. I need to replace that constant frustration with God's peace "that transcends all understanding".

Patience - I need to be more understanding and patient towards people at work who do not meet my expectations in terms of performance and competence. I need to lose my patience less with my kids. I need to see through God's eyes when my physical and spritual children do not behave the way I want them to. If God were to have more level of patience when dealing with me, I would have been consumed long ago.

Kindness - I need to be less consumed with my own affairs and open my eyes much more to the people around me. I need to be more responsive to the Spirit to situations that give me opportunities to do acts of kindness to my neighbours, colleagues or even to strangers.

Goodness - I need to practise much more of WWJD.... I need to mirror Him more often. I need to watch out for rage when driving. I need to shelf plans to put that baseball bat in my car....:)

Faithfulness - I need to regularly renew that commitment of faithfulness to my God, my wife, my family, my friends my church and my leaders. I need to be a good servant to all, to be dependable to those who count on me.

Gentleness - I need to suppress the urges to snap at people, even my own family. I definitely want to be more gentle in my relationship with my wife and kids.

Self Control - I need to watch my tongue. I need to be more wary of loose talk in my conversations with pre-believing friends. I need also more discpline in my life, in prayer, in studying and meditating on His Word, in maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise; and in time management.

Lots to do, but I WILL do it...so help me Lord!