I've always loved picking wild fruit--black/blue/straw/huckle berries, muscadines; and love finding plums and apples still growing on old farmsteads. What luck to discover them--what joy to come back over the years and find them still bearing.
Lots of times I've wished spiritual fruit would grow wild, but it usually only flourishes when cultivated. We call the process spiritual formation. The wonderful catalog below from Paul lists what tasty pickins come from cultivating what is most worthwhile in our lives.
It makes for difficult and delicious work.
Let your
lives be guided by the Spirit, and then you will certainly not indulge the
cravings of your lower natures. For the
cravings of the lower nature are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the
cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those of the lower nature; because these
are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything to which you
are inclined. But if the Spirit is
leading you, you are not subject to Law.
Now you know full well the doings of our lower natures. …Enmity, strife,
jealousy, outbursts of passion, intrigues, dissensions, factions, envying …and
the like. And as to these I forewarn you, as I have already forewarned you,
that those who are subject to such things will have no share in the Kingdom of
God. The Spirit, on the other hand,
brings a harvest of love, joy, peace; patience towards others, kindness,
benevolence; faithfulness, gentleness,
self-restraint. Against such things as
these there is no law. -from Paul's letter to the church at Galatia
