Through a conversation with a friend of mine, I explained to her that God had laid it on my heart to create a collection of handmade goods fully lettered by me to teach the gospel. She said immediately that it would be really fun to create a Fruit of the Spirit collection.
This conversation happened in December. Six months later, I am elated to bring you the Lovely Little Light Fruit of the Spirit Collection.
When starting this collection in February, I wanted to be intentional about how I go about my first complete collection. I wanted to make this a collection that could share in the truth of the gospel through the creative gifts that God has blessed me with not for my benefit or revenue but for HIS glory.
What I did not know is that this collection has produced in me a greater desire to know the character of God and continue to intentionally learn about the Fruit of the Spirit. My quest for learning turned into a study of the book of Galatians, a study of chapter 5, and a study of each fruit in isolation as means to understanding the nature of God himself.
Working on this collection had me really digging in the Word. It had me searching the Bible and asking God...How do we respond in heartbreaking times? How do we bring forth your fruit? How do we allow the spirit to work in us in our human sinful desires? How do we adequately live in our fallen world? How do we deal with trials and tribulations? What is wrong with the world?
Anyone else with me when I say that lately my eyes have become utterly wide open to the brokenness in our world? When looking at the social-emotional effects of quarantine, my personal sufferings + heartbreak, the unimaginable injustices all around the world, pain my friends and family are experiencing and the recent news of the horrific racism that still strongly exists in our country ... in the past few months my heart just hurts. I lament over the world we live in and long for a better world with Jesus someday. Not only that but I feel as though my words below pail in the lament my heart has felt.
But God is doing something. He’s taking what the enemy’s meant for evil and exposing the injustice that’s been hiding under systems and hearts for too long. There is hope that God is bigger than all of this racial injustice and is moving in people's hearts to rise up, speak up, and stand together. I know that there’s an invitation for everyone from God to lean into His heart right now and seek His thoughts in this matter too. Most nights lately I go to bed feeling heavy from the pain and injustice in this world, but feeling hopeful by a deeper understanding of who God has proven himself to be. Because when voices rise and we pray for God’s spirit to bring forth HIS fruit in our lives - things begin to change.
The Fruit of the Spirit is what inspired this collection and God has revealed to me that the Spirit is what we need because the Fruit of the Spirit is ultimately who GOD is, not who we are. So praise God that he gives us his Spirit so that we have the capability to bear these fruits to others around us for His glory.
Continue reading more of my reflections in future blog posts as I share some of the things I have learned through these past few months preparing this collection for you.
I have prayed that God would grow me through putting this collection together for you and I am amazed at the ways in which he has revealed himself to me through the past few months.
I also have been praying over YOU who are reading this now as I have worked on this collection- that He would also grow you in some capacity in his Spirit; that you would come to fall in love with Jesus more each day to allow him to transform your heart and life.
Finally, my prayer has been that if you are financially able to purchase an item from this collection that it would be a reminder to you to not only ask God to be your justification but that it would be a reminder to you to ask Him to do his sanctifying work in you by the power of his spirit to transform your heart and life.
Ephesians 2:8-9 reads, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
We are born sinners made fully right with God and justified before him as a gift of grace when we put our faith in what Jesus did - not in what we need to do.
I hope you can leave this page feeling the heaviness of your need to listen, learn and pray but encouraged by the sweet freedom of knowing that you are God’s beloved child not by what you do to earn his favor but by what he has already done for you in the work of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection.
You are his workmanship - he wants to be at work in your heart and life through his Spirit’s planting, watering, nurturing, cultivating, and pruning his fruit of righteousness in YOU.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)
What is the collection?
Each piece of this collection corresponds with one of the Fruit of the Spirit. This collection is made up of fully hand-lettered sweatshirts, t-shirts, a tank top, a phone case, a tumbler, a mug and digital downloads. All items in the collection will be available for a limited time only as this collection is a pre-order so I am able to make exactly what you all want - no more, no less. Items will be posted for sale starting on June 26th at 10AM CST and ending July 3rd at 12PM CST.
Where is the Fruit of the Spirit found in the bible?
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another."
Galatians 5:16-26 (ESV)
Want to learn more?
Check out my next several blog posts about the context of the book of Galatians, the context of the Fruit of the Spirit chapter and ultimately the meaning behind this famous passage.