Soul Scientist

Years ago, we gave my mother-in-law a small set of stones for her birthday. Each stone had one word etched on it – love, joy, peace, patience, and other fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23). While visiting my in-laws home this week, I saw the stones and started thinking about two (seemingly unrelated) things. How I used to love throwing stones into ponds, creeks, or rivers and how much impact even one fruit of the Spirit can have on a less-than-happy situation.

I still marvel at how an initial splash and subsequent ripple effect on the water’s surface from a thrown stone always goes further and wider than I expect from one stone, especially when that stone is small. It’s fascinating to me to see how much impact one small stone can have on a body of water far bigger than it is.

It’s also fascinating to me how much impact a fruit of the Spirit can have on a situation far bigger than I can understand today or imagine for tomorrow. For I’ve learned that Spirit-fruit can give an outcome of help and hope when present or an outcome of harm when absent.

After considering all of those ideas for a while, I was then prompted to ponder this question – “how much ripple effect can choosing the fruit of the Spirit have on a big challenge, circumstance, or condition in my life today?.” With this in mind, I realized when I’m facing something big even a little love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control can have a huge impact on the perspective of everyone involved in an outcome (Galatians 5:22b-23a NLT). Because any and all of these fruit can bring eternal perspective to both the giver and the receiver of the fruit.

The impact of a fruit of the Spirit in a situation lasts far longer and goes far further than its’ initial splash into a situation. The ripple effect of a Spirit-fruit promotes recognition instead of rage, long-suffering instead of lashing out, gentleness instead of guilt, faithfulness instead of fear, and self-control instead of selfishness.

One small stone, i.e. one fruit of the Spirit, can reorient an expected explosion of anger into a moment for eternal growth. One fruit can change the direction of denial or dismay into a determination to help someone. One fruit can produce an ever-widening perspective of hope in a river of seemingly hopeless circumstances. One fruit can turn self-righteousness into a return to God and petulance into patience, perseverance, and peace.

One fruit can convert worry into worship of the One Who willingly laid down His life for us.

One fruit can transform today’s trials and temptations into tomorrow’s triumphs in faith. Lives and legacies are altered by choosing to love one another instead of lobbing an insult at another.

And changes and choices like those point everyone in a situation to Jesus. As Christians, we must remember that we are always being watched to see if our words line up with God’s ways (or not).

There is never a moment not in need of more Spirit-fruit and closely following our Jesus.

For our Jesus is our Rock and Redeemer, our Cornerstone, and our Stone on which our hope is fixed forever. Our Jesus will never change in His power nor His promises or His Presence with us. Yet, He wants us to always be changing more and more into His Image with the cultivation of the Spirit’s work in our lives, one fruit at a time.*

1 John 2:5 NIV But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him

* To a farm girl, there’s almost nothing better than freshly picked ripe dripping-with-juice fruits eaten on a warm sunny afternoon in the shade whether they’re stone-fruits like peaches, cherries, or nectarines, or not, like watermelons, strawberries, and cantaloupes.

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written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2025.