day 2661: What Can Be Learned

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

 This past week the blogger, author and podcaster, Seth Godin said that all of these are skills that can be learned:

“Discipline, rigor, patience, self-control, dignity, respect, knowledge, curiosity, wisdom, ethics, honor, empathy, resilience, honesty, long-term, possibility, bravery, kindness and awareness.”

And you know what?  I think he is right.  All of these are a matter of choice on whether or not we want to learn them, and then practice them and then discipline ourselves to make them a part of how we live and work.  What we are lacking, we need to learn and them make them a part of how we go into our everyday work life. And for the record, if I could work with or for someone who had committed, practiced and honed these skills, well, they’d be on the list of best to ever had the chance to work with.

Recognize any of the above as Fruit of the Spirit?  Imagine that from the Holy Spirit that we are advantaged to have God wanting to bring those out to others through us.  From there, we can build all the rest.

Reference: Galatians 5:22 (New Living Translation)