If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.

The first reading starts out by saying that just because someone is born into the Spirit, that person has a choice between listening to and rejecting the call to follow the Spirit. The works of the flesh are those that maintain a person under social law; they include greed and jealousy amongst many others. If someone is born into the Spirit but follows the works of the flesh, that person’s life is not fruitful. When someone comes to desire merely worldly pleasures, it may appear that his life looks good from the outside, but oftentimes, that person has lost the Spirit and has lost Jesus. Jesus was born in the Spirit and walked in and followed the Spirit; to follow the example set by Jesus, we need to adhere to the fruits of the Spirit listed in this reading.

When I read the reading for today, I thought back to the song I learned in sixth grade to learn the fruits of the Spirit. Any way you know them, they are the gifts that we should all strive for (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.) rather than the often too attractive worldly desires. The more we use them, the stronger and more fruitful we will become. To me, it’s like the example of volunteering; when we are new to it, we may not like the idea of, say, spending a Saturday in a soup kitchen, but as we do it, the fruits of the Spirit grow within us and we truly enjoy it. What we are meant to do is to serve God, so by following the Spirit, we can be fruitful and satisfy God. Although many of us can get caught up in the worldly desires, such as fame and fortune, I feel that as long as we take the time every so often to reflect on how we are living in the Spirit, we can better live our lives in God.