Galatians 5:22-23 | A Memory Verse

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
—Galatians 5:22-23

I’m “behind” on our monthly verse series. I like to share a new verse here each month to meditate on and memorize together, but I’ve not been quite ready to move past the fruits of the Spirit. This passage has really been speaking to my heart in this season and it’s also wonderfully applicable for little hearts and minds.

There were a few months of this toddler season that were leaving me rather exasperated. I read the books and tried the tactics, but listening remained a struggle. All the little things felt exhausting. It brought me into an place of refinement, of God bringing to surface the flaws that I’m generally pretty practiced at burying. As the bouts of frustration became more and more frequent, I knew that I wasn’t modeling the kind of person that I wanted to be and yet I couldn’t seem to discipline myself into changing. And so I began meditating on the fruits of the Spirit in response to that desperation, praying for them to replace what I felt in my heart. 

My initial response to reading the list of good fruit was that I needed to try harder at all of them. But the more I dwell over them, the more I’m sensing that the areas where we detect lack are rarely a matter of our not trying hard enough. Most of us are trying so hard. Our lack is relational and it’s an indicator of where we’re out of sync with the Spirit. Let’s remember that they are the fruits of the Spirit, not the fruits of those who try the hardest. The enemy would love to shame us into believing that we are not enough, to isolate the virtues from their source (making them something else entirely).

Rather than the message of this verse being one of, “Try harder. Try harder. Try harder.” the message is one of, “Draw closer. Draw closer. Draw closer.” Transformation happens there. When the Spirit abides in us, we get to participate in the beautiful process of bearing its fruit. 

Instead of an instruction to work harder at being gentle, we receive an invitation that says, “Here. Let me be gentle with you, so that you can become gentle with others.“ When we prioritize abiding with God, we find a perfect example of what we’re called to be. That example validates who we are today, not the potential for who we could be. And the strangest thing happens when we feel secure and loved and accepted as we are…we move beyond it. We grow. We thrive. But when we question if we’re enough, when we desperately try to prove that we are worthy or love, we operate from a place of fear. Fear often causes us to turn inward, to self preserve and think of ourselves and when we make a habit of turning inward, we begin to resent all the ways people are making our lives inconvenient. But when we dwell with a God that affirms who we are and loves us, that truth transforms us. And we find a Spirit that makes us capable of becoming a little more like Christ.

Below you’ll find a free printable of Galatians 5:22-23. Decorate it or keep it simple and hang it in a places where you will see it most. On your refrigerator. In the bathroom. In the living room. In your planner. In the car. By the beds.

TIP: With this passage we have also made it a part of our daily rhythm to read it each morning at breakfast and I have been so impressed by how much these two year olds have been retaining. I would highly encourage finding a place in your daily rhythm to recite truth together. Adding it to something you already do (like mealtimes) works beautifully. It doesn’t take very much time, but it’s a way to nourish our souls while we nourish our bodies.