Let it Grow

I'm making some huge-to-me steps in my life.  I've been seeking the Lord for months and I have to believe that this direction is His leading, but I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that it's not His will for me.  I'm afraid I'm running ahead of Him.  I'm afraid that I'll become confused, that things others say will become apart of me when they shouldn't.

God says don't be afraid.  I believe that is my calling:  to learn to not be afraid and to learn to love perfectly because "perfect love casts out fear".

In the past I have taken the plunge and did not regret it.  I have learned things everywhere God has taken me.  If I go with Him, it cannot be wrong.

I must follow His spirit and listen to it.  I don't have to figure out what's right and what's wrong, I just have to follow Him. In the Bible it talks about the fruit of the spirit and I take that to mean that wherever God's spirit is, these things will grow:  joy, peace, love, endurance, patience, faithfulness, self-control.

I believe that whoever has these things inside of them has the spirit of God and is full of life.

In my Family we have another word for the fruit of the spirit and that is the word I just said: Life.

We believe when God's spirit is there, it brings life. The life-giving spirit of God makes goodness grow.  I think of it as a plant.

So I've grown up with people who strongly believe this fruit of the spirit/life thing.  It has benefited us countless times in getting to know God and being led by Him.

Sometimes God's spirit comes as a blast of encouragement, power to go on and continue in good works. Other times it's wrenching tearful pain like that when you have been convicted to cease sinning.  You'll know the common thread between these two aspects of the spirit of God by what they produce:  growth.  Like that beautiful, perfect plant.

It's like the sun some days and other days it's like dark, thunderous rains and all produce a magnificent product.

Contrariwise, just because something sounds encouraging or convicting, doesn't mean it's God's spirit saying it.  The way we know whether it is God is if we see that little green plant growing up out of it.

And now, back to the beginning and in conclusion, I will not be afraid.  I will trust in my good God.  I will rely on His spirit and I will not feel bad rejecting anything that I do not see bringing life.
He is good.