My wife Hendrina and I enjoy working on puzzles together. Not long ago, we finished a 1,000-piece puzzle. After hours of patient sorting and fitting, the picture was nearly complete.
Nearly, because one piece was missing.
We searched everywhere . . . under the table, under the couch, and I even cut open the vacuum bag. No matter how carefully we looked, we couldn’t find it. The puzzle formed a happy, fun picture, but it was incomplete. One small piece changed the whole image.
Paul writes in Galatians 5:22–23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” I have caught myself referring to the “fruits” of the Spirit. I shouldn’t, but I have.
It’s easy to talk about these nine qualities individually and consider them one at a time. But Paul calls it fruit, singular. He is showing that these traits grow together. You can see each one, but they are all connected. Together, they form a whole.
What happens if one area is incomplete or lacking?
If self-control is lacking, selfishness can overtake kindness. If I struggle with love, my expression of goodness will likely suffer as well. If peace is weak, agitation often finds its way into conversation, and joy becomes harder to see. If I am not gentle when exercising faithfulness at the right times, I may be perceived as arrogant.
These qualities are interconnected because they grow from the same source. The Holy Spirit is not developing isolated traits or virtues in us. Together, they form a picture of the Lord Jesus, who lives in us, as born-again believers.
“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Think about the “fruit” of your life this week. Has one virtue been incomplete or weak? How has this affected the other parts of the whole?
“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14).
Now, when I look at that puzzle, the missing piece is all I see. Hendrina and I even considered gluing and framing the puzzle just as it is. It serves as a powerful reminder that the Holy Spirit is always at work, shaping the incomplete pieces of our lives.
We are not discouraged—Hendrina was just given a new puzzle to sort and fit together!