Hope in the Holy Spirit
Written by Emma McCoy
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In case you haven’t been able to catch up on the past few months of the blog, I’ve been writing a short stories series on the fruits of the Spirit (here’s the first one). I’ve gone through each of the fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians outlines how the Holy Spirit produces in us these attributes as we walk along the faithful path. When we walk with Jesus, we become more loving, more patient, more kind, etc. It’s not surprising an agrarian culture would use an agrarian metaphor; when we are rooted in Jesus, like a tree, we will bear certain kinds of fruit thanks to the Holy Spirit.
As Spring Church has been walking through this focus, a crucial connection has been on hope. Using plain language, we define hope as “the desire for God’s future to break into the present.”
So how can noticing the fruits of the Spirit in our friends help us cultivate hope? How can we see hope in these attributes?
For the past few months, I’ve written short stories following my characters from the Advent and Lenten series to demonstrate what it looks like to name fruits of the Spirit in other people as a way to cultivate hope. Essentially, by naming kindness or patience in someone, we can feel and see how God’s kingdom is breaking in, right now. How great is that? So when a jeweler and artist have a conversation in the farmer’s market, they’re experiencing hope. When a receptionist tells his businessman friend that he’s a patient person, hope is there too. And hope is present in a hospital room when a nurse tells his former patient, now friend, that he’s not ready to let go because she has so much love to give.
These short stories are meant to illustrate what it can look like in real life to tell someone you know that they’re joyful, or gentle, or peaceful. Someone doesn’t have to be Christian for you to tell them that they’re kind; like we’ve been saying at Spring Church for years, God shows up in uncommon friendships in ways that we rarely expect.
Okay, so we’ve talked about how naming fruits of the Spirit in others cultivates hope. What next? Maybe we can try doing it together?
Perhaps there’s someone in your life who seems to be so full of joy you look forward to seeing them at work every day. Maybe when kindness is mentioned, you can’t help but think of your brother, who despite everything he’s been through, still manages to be empathetic. You might know someone who’s peaceful, able to hold boundaries and resolve conflict in a way that’s honest. You could be close to these people, or more like acquaintances, but it still could be worth mentioning this week. Tell someone who’s overflowing with love how much you appreciate them. Call patience what it is, and call it out. Every week at Spring Church we’re practicing this, fruit by fruit, adding paper leaves to a wonderful art piece that names all the people in our leaves we see hope in.
A huge thank you to Jeff for sharing his creative gifts and making this wonderful mobile!
When we’re able to articulate the fruits we see in others, it draws us closer to hope and what the Spirit is already doing.
You can listen to this series narrated like an audiobook on your favorite podcast app!
Follow us on Instagram @springchurchbellingham and here on the blog for new stories every week!
Who in your life would you like to share this with?
About the author
Spring Church member, Emma McCoy (M.A.), has two poetry books: This Voice Has an Echo (2024) and In Case I Live Forever (2022). She’s been published in places like Across the Margin, Stirring Literary, and Thimble Mag. She reads for Chestnut Review and Whale Road Review. She’s probably working on her novel right now. Catch her on Substack: https://poetrybyemma.substack.com/