Teaching Kids About the Fruit of the Spirit - Devotional For Children

"But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control;" Galatians 5: 22

Because we live close to the Rocky Mountain foothills and the altitude is so high in Calgary, we have to adapt our gardening habits. Backyard green houses are very common or garden frames. I can get a head start on my gardening if I start my plants in the house in early spring or buy young plants at the end of May.

This last March I was very impatient. I wanted spring to come and decided to help it along by starting my plants, in the house, way too early. By the end of April the dahlias were already two feet tall and my oriental lilies were already blooming on my kitchen table. When I finally set my dahlias out they blossomed beautifully all summer and even now are displaying huge saucer size colorful blooms. But my oriental lilies died off within a week leaving the green stems to remind me of my impatience.

One spring I was fascinated by the scarlet flowered beans that grow to the top of the fence. I started some on my window sill. They sprouted so quickly and their tendrils curled all over my chairs and TV trays in the dining room window. By May the snow was gone and the sun was shining brightly. When I got up in the morning it was at least 10 degrees centigrade. The bean tendrils were already three feet long and I knew I was trying my husband's patience with my inside garden.

Then and there I decided I too had had enough of these plants invading on my dinner plate so next morning out they went. I knew better. I know you're supposed to harden your plants off before you plant them outdoors but it's such a tedious procedure. First you set the plant out on the patio in the sun for a very short time and then take it in. The next day you put it out longer and every day a little longer until it gets used to the outdoor coolness and atmosphere. Then you can finally plant it. Even then you may have to cover it on cool nights and cooler days. I had lots of writing to do and decided to just plant them against the fence. For a couple of days I had beautiful green bean plants running up my poles but slowly most of them just shriveled up and slowly died.

This hard, time consuming work of tending vegetables and flowers makes me think of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We try different tactics to sprout and grow them ourselves our lives. We even have some success.

Just like my plants that did so well in my warm sunny kitchen we can display symptoms of the fruit of the Holy Spirit as long as we practice them in a controlled environment. It's easy to show love to others and be patient with people as long as everything is peaceful and we are in control. But then things start going wrong. We get super busy and run out of time. We get frustrated and go back to our old habits of blaming others for my problems.

Sometimes we try so hard and it seems no matter how many different tactics we try, no fruit appears. That reminds me of the Lily of the Valley roots I purchased and not one of them grew. Even my young Peony plant was stunted in its growth. This time I knew I wasn't too blame for failure. I had to look further and realized I had bought these roots on sale at a hardware store. They just weren't healthy roots. I promised my self to buy all of my roots and bulbs at the renowned garden centre next year.

At times we too forget the source of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We even attempt to grow these fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control relying on our own strength. Or just like my young tender plants that I set out too early and a touch of frost kills them; outside influences overcome our good inclinations.

Only the Holy Spirit can grow the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We need to be close to God, spending time with Him in prayer and reading His Word and obeying Him as He leads us. It's only yielding to Him that brings godly fruit into our lives.

Bible Truths to Share with Your Kids:

In the Bible we read about fruits of the Holy Spirit that God wants to grow in our lives. These fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Probably most kids, even you, would like to have these characteristics. We all try to live these values. But it's hard to always love, or be good or self-controlled when things aren't going our way or we are tired or some one is giving us a hard time.

Well, I have news for you. God doesn't even want you to try to be these things all by yourself in your own strength. He wants to grow these characteristics in you. He does that when you spend time with Him.

Just like you are influenced by other kids when you spend time with them and become kind of like them, you are influenced by God when you spend time with Him and become like Him.

You can spend time with God by reading the Bible and listening to what He wants to say to you. You also spend time with Him when you pray to Him or when you go to a Bible Study or Prayer time at church with your friends. The more time you spend with God the more fruit the Holy Spirit produces in your life if you let Him.

Jesus says He is like a vine to us and we are like the branches of that vine. The branches get life from the vine so we bear fruit that the vine bears. We are blessed to be chosen by the God of the universe to be in such a close relationship with Him.

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