Morning Reflections: Finding Peace in Everyday Choices

The average person makes thirty-five thousand decisions every single day. In our last time together, we talked about the search for peace within those thousands of choices. Today we are going to look at the source of that peace, the character it builds within us. Here is the reading from the book of Galatians, chapter five, verses twenty-two and twenty-three. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

This is one of the most famous lists in all of scripture. And it can also be one of the most intimidating. It sounds like a list of impossible standards. A set of virtues we have to somehow manufacture inside ourselves. But the first and most important word in that list is “fruit.” Fruit is not something a tree tries to produce. A tree doesn't strain or strive to grow an apple. The apple is the natural, inevitable result of the tree being healthy and connected to its source of life—the soil, the water, the sun.

The fruit just… happens. Here’s what that means for you, today, as you face your own thirty-five thousand decisions. The invitation isn’t to try harder to be more patient. Or to force yourself to feel joyful when you’re stressed. The invitation is to connect to the source. The work is not producing the fruit. The work is tending the soil of your own heart. So let’s look at just a few of these. Peace. This isn’t the absence of conflict. It’s not an empty inbox or a day with no problems. Peace is an inner settledness that can exist right in the middle of chaos.

It’s the deep breath you take before answering a difficult email. It’s the quiet confidence that even if things go wrong, your foundation is secure. For you, today, peace might look like choosing not to engage in a pointless argument. It might look like putting your phone down for five minutes and just being still. Then there’s patience. Or, as some translations say, forbearance. This is about our posture toward time, and toward other people. We live in a world that demands instant results. Instant replies.

Instant solutions. Patience is a quiet rebellion against that urgency. Here’s what that means for you in the next few hours. When a coworker is slow to respond, or the person in front of you in line is taking forever, that’s a moment for fruit to grow. Patience isn’t gritting your teeth and waiting. It’s a conscious release. It’s the decision to grant someone else the grace of time, because you’ve been given that same grace. And finally, self-control. This one is the anchor for all the others. It’s the guardrail.

It’s the space we create between a feeling and an action. You will feel anger today. You will feel frustration. You will feel tired. Self-control doesn’t mean you won’t have those feelings. It means you get to decide if those feelings get to drive. Here’s what that means for your decisions. Self-control is the pause. The moment you stop before you speak. The moment you wait before you click “send.” It’s what allows love, joy, and peace to have a voice, instead of being drowned out by your first, rawest reaction.

These qualities are not a checklist for you to complete by the end of the day. They are not a measure of your performance. They are evidence of a connection. They are the fruit that grows when a life is rooted in something deeper than the temporary circumstances of the day. So as you walk into the hours ahead, don’t focus on trying to be more patient or more peaceful. Focus on the connection. Tend to the roots. The fruit will take care of itself.