Walking in step Wednesday!

Wednesday: The Blessing Within 

• The SUSTAINER of the Blessing. God is NEAR. As near as the breath in our lungs. The very thing keeping us alive. - You can live 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, but only minutes without breath. 
  
• An ARMY of blessing - God of Angel armies - help them to see. 
  
  • We are all filled with the Holy Spirit, and we can learn to listen - LOVE. 
    
  • God’s presence with us 24/7 
    
  • Sustainable living - more than just composting and eating healthy, this is a way to be sustained, to be nourished, to be blessed and BE a blessing. 
    
• He calls us His friends, He walks with us, and His plans have been good from the beginning
  
• He delights in us declaring all the blessings He has given to us. 
  

• Fruit of the Spirit: 
  
  • Love: Strawberry- All of the other "fruit of the spirit" is based in Love. What does it look like to be loving and how do we see that all the other qualities a person can muster are nothing if it's not from a place of love (1 Cor 13:1-7). God Himself IS love and that when we are connected to him, of course we would be loving and show love - like our strawberries are connected to the vine, and they all produce delicious fruit. Discuss how it feels to be loved and to love someone or something. Love "reaches out" - like the runners of the strawberry plant. Love is patient, kind, forgiving, slow to anger, not easily offended, (1 Corinthians 13:7-11). Love is shown/felt in family, in marriage, in Jesus, animals, the Holy Spirit, and friendship. Love is something to be ON DISPLAY (like the seeds that cover the outside of the strawberry) It is the Love of God that makes us resilient, and the blessing of God’s love and favor are present even when we are going through something hard or painful. We can trust that God loves us and is for us. 
    
  • Joy: Orange - our orange is bright, energizing, and juicy, much like joy. Joy is protective, joy is fragrant, and an atmosphere changer and it is the Joy of the Lord that is our Strength. This one brought some good depth today as we talked about the fact that the peel, though it smells amazing and squirts the delicious smell all over (it is the fragrant part), it is actually incredibly bitter. Jus like in our “Be Attitudes of Matthew 5, the hardest parts of life often illuminate the depth of Gods blessings all the more. THIS IS WHERE THE BOOM HAPPENED - The hard and bitter parts of our lives, like grief, sorrow and pain, when peeled back and dug deep into, REVEAL the glorious sweetness of Joy. Joy is an atmosphere changer, but Joy requires us to enter into our deepest toughest most bitter places in order to come through with compassion and awareness. Joy is so much more than happiness, it is knowing that at the core of it all, there is resurrection hope for the here and now. Wow. We talked about how Joy and Sadness (much like the movie inside out) have to coexist. It is when the grief and joy harmonize that we are made strong. 
    
  • Peace: Peach - Oh the fun revelations and Ah-Ha moments here! As we examined the peach, its soft and comforting outside, the juicy sweet inside and the armored pit deep within, we noted that our peace brings comfort, sweetness to our responses, and protection to our souls. WOW! The peach pit is amorous, and the PEACE of God, which passes all understanding GUARDS our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4: 7-9) The soft seed within the pit is our heart and mind and Jesus is like the amorous pit guarding against any lie, accusation, or attack of the enemy who would love to distract, destroy and diminish us. We will relate back to this when we talk about the blessings from Balaam (a wild story anchored in the truth of God’s POWERFUL blessing for us. 
    
  • Patience: Banana - The Lord is patient with us (each of us) and he is SO gracious and slow to anger. He wants everyone to know him, and he is patient with those of us that know him as well. (2 Peter 3:8-9) I shared my prayer with this fruit for my Daddy to know Jesus, and we talked about how long God will wait for people to make all things new, because he doesn't want anyone to be without him.
    
  • Kindness: Kiwi - As we examined our Kiwi, we noted that the sweet part is in the center, and the sour part is the green outsides, yet the seeds have these connected pockets of sweet juicy goodness that extend into the sour. Our kindness is rooted in the sweetness and the kindness of God towards us and our own stories. As we experience the Kindness of God our lives are transformed, and we are able to reach out and into the lives of others bringing sweetness into the sour world around us. It is actually kindness that leads us to repentance and heals us! We learned that we could bring sweetness/kindness into any sour situation. We talked about the woman at the well, and the woman caught in the act of adultery here as examples of Jesus' kindness, towards those in sin and those exercising their righteousness in harsh and unloving ways. 
    
  • Goodness: Mango - The Mango pit is HUGE! We can know and trust that God is GOOD all the time, and all the time God is GOOD. When we allow God's goodness to settle in our hearts and we operate out of doing good to others, then the core of our actions is without fault, and we can stand protected against false accusations. Jesus was good, to the CORE, and when we choose to follow him and follow his ways, we, though misunderstood, abused or hurt, can always know that He works all things for our Good and His glory (Romans 8:28-29). One friend even shared how God was good even in all the discipline that he has given us as we learn to walk in His ways! Wow
    
  • Faithfulness: Blackberries - Faithfulness is an attribute of God that he gives us to produce in our lives as well, this fruit is a gift that brings us a return. When we are faithful with the little things we are entrusted with more! What a gift! We may be able to count how many seeds are on a blackberry, but we can't even begin to understand how many black berries come from one blackberry bush in its lifetime! Talk about multiplication! He who began the good works in each of us is FAITHFUL to bring them to full completion. 
    
  • Gentleness: Apple - Though apples are our toughest fruit of our lesson, they are easily bruised on the inside. When we consider all the difficulties of life, bullying, rejection, and pain, it's easy to get bruised, however, the gift of gentleness allows our hearts to stay tender and be gentle to others who are hurting. The servant king did not tolerate those who chose evil, but gently healed, corrected, and administered his lovingkindness to them. We talked about how we do not have to tolerate or subject ourselves to bullies, or even be nice to them, but that our gentle yet clear and settled responses can be transformational for our heart and theirs. When people hurt our feelings, it is gentleness that we need to respond with, and gentleness that we need to bring back to those we have hurt. 
    
  • Self-control: Cherries - This lesson we included the fact that self-control leads to freedom. God's commands are our conditions to freedom, being a free people does not mean doing whatever we want whenever we want, in reality that is just straight chaos, but we serve a loving God, who is not in the business of controlling his beloved, but in fact offering them freedom through obedience. When we learn to practice self- control, we are actually practicing the greatest commandment... "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself." We practice self-care and self-love when we practice self-control and in turn, we learn to love others well though how we care for ourselves.
    
• What do you believe you have to give?
  
  • Pizza dough example - portion of dough is what is rolled out. When we are aware of the abundant blessings of God, we are far more willing and able to share those blessings with others.  
    
  • Widow at the temple - she wasn't held captive by her lack 
    
    • Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” John 6:38
      

Learning to walk in the way of Love requires us to follow someone…. Matthew 11:28-29
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a REAL REST. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” 

Our Worship to go with today was 
Thrive - Casting Crowns
He's Crazy about you - Tauren Wells 
Rebel - Anne Wilson (By request of the kiddos!)