Where are you headed?

As 2011 gets underway, I feel a need to take stock of things as they are, count my many blessings, and set about forming a vision for the year to come.
Leslie and I recently heard something from an older woman on a panel discussion on parenting and family life.  It was a very simple statement, but also very true and it has been on my mind continually since I heard it last week.  She said, “You will end up where you are headed.”  She then described taking note of some friends when she was younger and thinking to herself, “They are headed for a divorce if they don’t start treating each other better.”  They did eventually divorce.  They got where they were headed.   And of another couple she thought, “If they don’t stop spending money like this they are going to end up bankrupt.”  They did end up bankrupt.  Simple yet profound.  We will reap what we sow.  
I’ve heard a lot of talks and seen plenty of books and commentary on the fruits of the Spirit, and most of them seem backwards to me.  They often admonish us to do or be the things described in Galations 5, love, be joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, etc... in order that we may be filled with the Spirit, but that is not what St. Paul said.  He said, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” and that the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Fruit is the result of seeds planted.  My prayer is that I may sow seeds of righteousness in my life, that my family might reap the fruits of the Spirit filled life.

“Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.”  Ecclesiastes 11:1