We pray for patience and God sends tribulation, for tribulation works patience. Romans 5:5
We pray for submission and God sends us suffering; we learn obedience by the things we suffer. Hebrews 2:10; 5:8
We pray for usefulness and God sends opportunity to sacrifice ourselves by thinking of things to do for others. Philemon 2:4
We pray for victory and the things of the world sweep down upon us in a storm of temptation. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. I John 5:4
We pray for union with Christ and God severs natural ties, separates loved ones, and our best friends sometimes misunderstand us.
We ask to follow Jesus and He separates us from home and kindred. For He himself said, Whosoever he be of you that forsake not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33
We pray for the fruit of the Spirit and what does that cost us? All the world wants the fruit of the Spirit, but not many are willing for the process which only comes by the Gospel and submission to the will of God.
Galatians 5:22-23 Amplified Bible
The fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
We pray for the fruit of the Spirit, but are we willing for the process by which it comes?
We might be inclined to refer to Galatians 5:22-23 as the fruits of the Spirit [plural], but that is not what the Bible teaches. The fruit is the one fruit of the Spirit.
Let’s think of the fruit as a peach. You have one peach, but it consists of many different characteristics differing from competing fruits. There is the colour, the texture, the skin, the meat inside the skin, the core, etc. The fruit of the Spirit is like a peach.
Graciously accepting God’s answer to our prayers for this Fruit.
All this fruit of the Spirit is best grown and developed in their opposite environments.
God replies to our prayers in very practical and peculiar ways:
We pray for love, and God sends peculiar suffering and puts us with apparently unlovely people and let’s them say things that rasp our nerves and lacerate our hearts.
For love suffers long and is kind, is not impolite; not easily provoked, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopes all things. 1 Corinthians 13
God may reply by allowing us to live among some unlovely people who hate us, and thus we are put into a school where the genuine love of Christ can be worked into us.
We pray for joy. We may be put into unhappy situations where we can learn the true inward joy. Situations we would never choose for ourselves, but God can give us joy there, and that is true joy.
We pray for [inner] peace: we may find ourselves in a situation of turmoil, and through this experience He would like to teach us more of the genuine inward peace, peace with God, the peace of God.
We pray for long-suffering, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting] and tolerance. He may allow us to have many years of tribulation, and this will slowly but surely bring forth these virtues we prayed for. He may allow us to be among those who are rude and unkind, in order to try to immunize us against this other, and bring forth the beauty of true gentleness and kindness in spite of the opposite surroundings.
We pray for gentleness and kindness, and we are faced with the harshness of the World, Flesh and Devil. There is no gentleness as seen in Jesus there.
We pray for goodness and we are surrounded by a world of badness, filth, a Sodom and Gomorrah.
We pray for faith and faithfulness, and He will allow others to be unfaithful to us.
We pray for meekness and gentleness, and we might find ourselves among very forward, greedy, self-centered people.
We pray for temperance, self-control, and we may be obliged to fight against much intemperance. Those who lose their temper.
A neighbour of ours would get so angry he would throw his hat on the ground in the mud and jump on it. Dad exerted temperance and self-control. We children would laugh about it.
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