Welcome to Day One of our slow-down summer! I am so thrilled to walk this unhurried journey with you as we examine our year so far, the good, the bad, and the really bad. We will look at the fruit we are producing, and how living a slower, more intentional life can help us be better lovers of Jesus in the next season. As we begin our time together, let's visit one verse we are all familiar with, the verse that reminds us to slow down, Psalm 46: “Be still, and know…” What I find really interesting is that as we live out our lives, God doesn't tell us in this verse to run faster and we'll find Him there. What He is saying is to calm our inner noise, the inner chaos that prevents us from hearing Him clearly. The Hebrew word behind “be still” carries the sense of letting your hands drop, of stopping our striving. Stillness, in Scripture, is not laziness. It is an act of worship and trust. It is the body's way of confessing that God is God and we are not. That is what these next ten days will be about.

Some of us made New Year's resolutions, goals for our year, or maybe you didn't think of it or chose not to, and that's perfectly okay too. Whichever camp you fall into, I am pretty sure you had an idea of what 2026 was going to look like. So let's think back over the first six months of 2026. How many of us set a pace to run this year that we can't sustain? Maybe somewhere between the resolutions and the routines, we actually forgot to breathe in the middle of all the hustle. I do believe that Scripture shows us that God partners with us as we plan ahead, but ultimately, it is the Lord who orders our steps. How many of us have allowed busyness to order our steps in ways that are not bearing healthy fruit? I read a quote once that said, “rest before you're empty,” and that single sentence has transformed the way I personally view and engage in rest. Rather than pushing myself to the brink of exhaustion and collapsing into a Netflix binge marathon, I am learning, in small ways, to rest in less stimulating ways. Netflix can be a fun source of entertainment, but we cannot allow it to become a place where we numb our emotions instead of tending to them.

Dallas Willard, an author I enjoy reading and will reference throughout this devotional, was once asked what a person must do to become spiritually healthy. His answer, shockingly, was not a twenty-one-day program or a new reading plan. It was a statement about eliminating hurry from our lives, because hurry, he believed, was the great enemy of life with God. Imagine that. It doesn't sound like warfare, right? But it is. Hurry doesn't just make us tired; it makes us unavailable, unavailable to God's voice because other voices have taken up residence in our minds, unavailable to our children because we're too busy, to the neighbor who just wants to chat for a few minutes. Hurry is the complete opposite of peace. And peace, the fruit of the Spirit, is where we will begin today. Allowing ourselves to be still at the feet of Jesus nourishes our souls in a way that nothing else can.

Let's go back to the verse about being still. Notice that the command of Psalm 46:10 comes with a promise attached: “Be still, and know.” Stillness is how knowing happens. There are things about God you can learn on the move, but there is a kind of knowing that only comes when we're not “doing.” This is why the enemy of our soul is more than happy for us to be busy, even busy with good things, even busy with church things, because we're too busy. A hurried Christian is a distracted Christian, and a distracted Christian slowly forgets what they know. I've seen this in my own life, at work. I come into my office and see a line of students waiting to be seen. Feelings of anxiety and overwhelm set in as I see the line getting longer, the phone rings, emails are coming in. I tell myself to hurry; distracted, I am listening to my student while typing out notes. I am there, physically, but mentally I'm thinking of all the other items I need to get to. It's in these moments, when I get home and get still in the presence of God, that in His mercy He shows me that while being productive, I missed key moments to really slow down and listen, listening to each student who walks into my office with their story. I'm continuously learning to do this, to honor God's creations, in the middle of chaos and confusion. While wanting to do our work with excellence, it is also important for us to slow down enough to allow ourselves to be interrupted when His Spirit leads us to. To be still. So let's practice that today.

You may find that stillness is harder than any task you've completed this year. I know it is very difficult for me! Within ninety seconds, my mind will remind me of all the things I need to do, and all the things I maybe shouldn't have done. This is normal. Don't panic! Our minds will settle with time and practice. Pick a verse or phrase and practice coming back to that statement in your time of stillness. Gently come back to that one phrase: Be still, and know that I am God. Breathe it in: “Be still.” And then out: “You are God.” Ten minutes of this will do more for us than another hour of scrolling ever could.

And here is the most precious part: God is not waiting at the end of your stillness with a performance review. He is present in the stillness itself. He is just happy you came.

Sheep do not set the pace. Unless you're a sheep from the movie Sheep Detectives... those sheep definitely do! But in real life, they don't. That may be the most countercultural sentence in the entire Bible for people like us, who have been trained since childhood to believe that our speed is our own responsibility, that we need to perform, to do things better and always faster. Psalm 23 opens with a quiet demolition of that whole way of doing life: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” I shall not lack. I shall not be left behind. I do not have to earn what I already have in Jesus. He is ours regardless of our performance. And because He is our Good Shepherd, I can rest.

Notice what the Shepherd actually does in this psalm. He makes me lie down. This is what we are learning in Pastor Matt's teachings on rest, the Lord, in His knowing, convicts us to rest. He lovingly knows our capacity and speaks gently to us, asking, “Beloved, will you rest with me today?” He leads me beside still waters, not huge waterfalls, but quiet water, the kind sheep can actually drink from. He restores my soul. The sheep's entire job description is to stay close to their Shepherd and keep His pace. Jesus tells us, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me” (John 10:14). Following Jesus has a pace, and it isn't one of rushing and chaos. It is the tempo of a man who walked everywhere, who was never once recorded rushing, who stopped for children, beggars, and flowers. Can you imagine if He didn't? Can you imagine serving a God who went into a full-blown panic attack when Lazarus died, or who unraveled every time He was criticized by the Pharisees? No, the Good Shepherd models for us what love looks like in action.

John Mark Comer, a pastor in the United States, has spent much of his ministry pointing out that hurry and love do not work together, that hurry is not just a scheduling problem in our lives but a kind of violence we do to our own souls. Think about that word: violence. When we drag ourselves through six months at a pace the Shepherd never set, something in us gets bruised. Something in us begins to fade, the wonder of daily life with our Shepherd. We snap at the people we love most. We skim instead of actually read a book. We inhale food we don't taste. We are on autopilot. Gentleness, today's fruit, is one of the simple joys that begins to fade when we choose life on the fast track.

Here is the midyear question I would like for us to look at today, found in Scripture. Psalm 23 puts it to us: who has been setting your pace since January? For many of us the honest answer is: our boss, our friends, social media algorithms, maybe? Social media impacts our mood, our self-esteem, our marriages, by painting a fantastical view of someone else's life, all the while hiding the behind-the-scenes. We push ourselves to curate an image of ourselves online that the Good Shepherd never asked us to fit into. None of those voices is the Shepherd's. His voice leads to green pastures and still waters, places of nourishment, of refreshment and rest, not depletion or dehydration. If the pace you've been keeping consistently leaves your soul dry and running on empty, that alone is evidence you've been following the wrong shepherd. Our environments have the capacity to encourage our growth; they can motivate us to make wiser choices and fuel us to live a more fulfilling and restful life that values God's voice. But we can also put ourselves into environments that compromise our standards of behavior, leading us into patterns that slowly, over time, erode our relationship with God.

The good news is that sheep are allowed to be re-gathered. The psalm doesn't say, “He waits for me to schedule rest once my life falls apart.” It says He makes me lie down, because sheep will only rest when they feel safe with their Shepherd. So let's pretend for a moment we're sheep from Sheep Detectives, and let's just say our inability to rest this year has not been a character flaw so much as a signal. There is somewhere inside us that we have not felt safe enough to stop. Maybe we can begin by asking ourselves why; what makes me feel unsafe right now? The Shepherd's answer is not to shame the sheep but to stand closer. “You are with me,” God promises us this.

Today we open the journal. The first two days taught us to stop and to slow; today we look back, carefully and prayerfully, at the road from January to June. But notice how David frames the inventory in Psalm 139. He does not say, “I will search myself.” He says, “Search me, O God.” The review is conducted by the One who has already searched us and known us, who understands our nature and our capacity.

Self-examination without grace often leads us into condemnation and shame, feeling like we've messed up, and we might as well continue as we usually do. I have been there! But the writer of Lamentations shows us a third way. In Scripture the author writes that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, that His mercies are new every morning, and then, a few verses later: “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord” (3:40). Let's just sit with this verse for a few seconds. Examine our ways, and then return to the Lord. There is a trust there, a confidence that regardless of my ways, I am asked to return to Him. Examination is safe because His mercy got there first. You can tell the truth about your year because the truth about your year has already been covered by the faithfulness of God. He has already completed this year before you. His faithfulness, not your consistency, is today's fruit. His Word tells us that He will be faithful to complete His work in us, not that we need to be faithful and do it on our own.

So let's do an exercise together. I have included a digital copy of this at the end of this day, but a pen and paper may be a way to slow things down and step away from the screen. Take your journal and divide a page into three columns.

First: gratitude. Walk month by month, January through June, and write down the gifts, the answered prayers, the ordinary graces, the people, the small recoveries, the moments you felt most alive, meals that meant something to you, words spoken over you that shaped you. Do not rush this column. You will be surprised how much goodness was buried under the busyness of your daily life.

Second: grief. Write what was hard, losses, disappointments, prayers still unanswered, the plans that didn't work out, the version of 2026 that hasn't happened yet. Write it all out. Tears are prayer too, so give yourself this moment to write it before the Lord.

Third: growth. Where did you change? What did you learn? What is a discipline you are working on right now? What fruit of the Spirit do you see the most in your life? The least? What books made an impact on you? Which Bible verses were highlighted to you?

When you're done, pray Psalm 139:23–24 over them slowly. “Search me… test me… see if there is any offensive way in me.” Ask God to show you what He needs you to see. We must remember that when God corrects, He does it in love. Any voices you hear that bring shame are not His. Our Father is loving, and He leads in love. As He searches, we know He will bring healing in His presence.

Now that we have looked at the first half of our year, let's look at some practices to help make the second half of our year, and this summer, restful. Today we will discuss Sabbath. God designed creation with six days of work, one day of sweet rest. God modeled this for us, not because He was tired. He rested, I believe, to delight; to stop, look at everything He had made, and enjoy it. Sabbath, then, is made to enjoy.

Now for the uncomfortable question for all of us... when was your last real Sabbath? An actual day set apart for rest and worship and delight? For many of us, the last time was way before January of this year, and that's okay. No shame. But let's look at what Jesus said about Sabbath: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). It's in this verse that I believe Jesus is showing us that we are not what we produce. Our identity is not attached to how productive we are.

And it takes self-control to walk in a life of obedience to slow down and rest. Self-control, among other things, is the power to stop. Anyone can keep going; momentum takes over, and you feel productive, so you keep pushing yourself. It takes wisdom and self-control to know that we need breaks, whether that's a nap (more on that later) or turning off your phone.

So let's make it practical, because Sabbath never happens by accident; it is prepared for, and scheduled in your calendar. So let's look at your week right now and choose your day, or if a full day is impossible in this season, choose a generous block of a few hours. And fill it with a life of Sabbath activities; this can be going for a drive, cooking a new recipe or baking, or spending time with family. I read a quote once that said, “Sabbath should feel less like a diet and more like a feast.” At our house, Sabbath is something we practice. Sometimes it's a complete day, and sometimes it's only a few hours. Depending on the demands of our schedule, we choose activities that bring our souls rest. A long walk in nature, or around my home, brings me great refreshment. Sitting in our backyard and taking delight in small joys, like the new flowers that bloom in my garden, or how my lemon tablecloth looks so pretty in the sunshine. Sometimes it looks like lighting candles and using the fancy china plates, and sometimes it's completely disconnecting my phone so that I can focus on my husband or the other guests in our home. The essence of Sabbath is resting our souls in God, and who better to do that with than with His precious creations!

We are halfway through the plan! Let's look at a verse Pastor Matt preached on a few weeks ago, on the theme of rest. In Scripture, Jesus said, “Come to me, all who are weary,” and then He follows it up with, “I will give you rest.” But then Jesus says something strange. He provides us with a remedy which is... a yoke? I had to look up what a yoke was used for, and found that a yoke is a work instrument, a “wooden crossbeam that harnesses oxen to a plow.” I don't know about you, but I feel like that is the last thing a tired soul needs, another heavy wooden thing on our back... imagine the splinters! But Jesus is much wiser, and the reason He uses this image is because in a yoke, both need to be walking the same pace for the yoke to fall and settle nicely. He tells us to pick up His yoke. I read in a commentary that the author says it's not about whether you will carry a yoke, but whose. I found it interesting how Jesus doesn't say, take the yoke away, you have no need of it. Maybe it's because Jesus knows that in our humanness, our hearts make idols out of pretty much anything. So He provides us the solution, the remedy, which is Himself. He instructs us to yoke ourselves to Him, as His burden is light.

This God knows your personality, and He knows that if you don't allow rest, it will keep pushing your body to its limits. This will result in a diminished version of the person He created you to be. He knows my personality and my temperament, and He knows that if I don't take time to rest, I will lose sight of the people He has entrusted me to care for. Which means, in the long run, resting ourselves is an act of love we give to the people we love, so they can experience the best version of us.

And now let's look at how Jesus models this for us in His invitation; it is one of the places where Jesus describes for us His own heart: “I am gentle and lowly in heart…” Let's look at those words carefully. Gentle. Lowly. Not one impatient bone in His body toward us who are weary. He is not judging us here. This is where today's fruit, kindness, takes root. We become like Jesus by walking with Him. Having experienced His kindness, we can walk in step with Him, matching His stride. A yoke, remember, is built for two. When we walk in step, not ahead, we are able to better experience and demonstrate His kindness. We can, because the King of Kindness shows us daily how to practice this.

Then let His kindness leak out of you. Kindness is love with its sleeves rolled up in small ways: it is the text you send when you know someone is going through a difficult time, it is taking the time to be kind to the cashier who is serving you, it is the kindness you extend to a family member who is not very kind. Psalm 116 makes the connection explicit: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful… Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” Kindness received becomes rest; rest received becomes kindness. People who live under an easy yoke are simply easier to be around.

Isaiah 30:15 might be the most beautiful verse in the Bible; it is a verse I have returned to often. It is a verse that reminds me, and corrects me, when my heart posture is out of balance. In this verse, God demonstrates for us salvation and strength for His anxious people in four gentle words I'd like for us to look at, returning, rest, quietness, trust. These are postures of the heart when trusting God. But then we see how Scripture records their response: “But you were unwilling.” Isn't that sad? Judah was facing a crisis, and instead of returning to God they sprinted to Egypt for fast horses and military alliances. Quick fixes. Speed felt safer than stillness. Doing something felt better than waiting on God. In these verses, not waiting on God and hurrying isn't just exhausting; it reveals a heart posture that wants to do things on our own.

So now let's sit with those four words, because, as we've discussed, they can be looked at as heart postures for slowing down this summer and cultivating the fruit of patience. Returning, repentance, humility in action, acknowledging our failures and making God our source. Rest, being still from all the noise. Quietness, settling ourselves, not trying to fix everything on our own. Trust, the weight of our life actually leaning on God. And notice what God attaches to these postures: salvation and strength. We tend to think quietness is doing nothing. But Isaiah says quietness is where strength comes from. The loudest, fastest version of you is not the strongest version of you. The trusting version is.

Lysa TerKeurst is an author I read often, and she has written at length about the pain and disappointment of living between our expectations and our reality, those seasons when life is simply not what we thought it would be by now. We all go through these seasons, but while reading her books, I have learned that while these seasons are incredibly painful and humbling, they have taught me to rely on God, maybe not for answers, but for the strength to trust when answers won't come. As we look at our year so far, maybe we can identify some of the disappointments we've experienced. Maybe you can understand why, and maybe, like me, we won't ever know exactly why. But the way we move through those seasons, in returning, in quietness, in rest, and in trust, maybe we can find a new way of moving through the rest of 2026. This is one way we can cultivate the fruit of patience.

In our culture today, we have lost the art of waiting well. Our world doesn't do waiting very well. We have actually done the complete opposite and created ways to live so we don't have to wait on anything, same-day delivery, skipping the intro on Netflix, instant answers by text message. These are only a few of the ways we have weakened our muscle for patience. So how do we rebuild it in small ways? Maybe we can stand in the longer line on purpose and pray for the people in it. Maybe when we make tea, we let the kettle boil without checking our phone. Maybe when we're talking to someone, rather than planning what to say next in response, we take the time to listen and allow them the chance to speak.

Jesus once used flowers in a lesson about anxiety, which I love, because I love flowers! In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, He was addressing people worried about food, clothes, and tomorrow, people exactly like us. He then says, “Consider the lilies of the field.” In the definition of consider, which means to “think carefully about something,” Jesus is assigning homework! How cool is that? And the homework is staring at wildflowers. I didn't like homework as a student, but I could get behind this assignment. In this assignment, if Jesus were to ask you to complete it, what would the wildflowers show you? If you were to consider them… what would you see?

So why flowers? Flowers don't last forever. They are only here for a specific time and in a very specific season. They require the right conditions of sun and water for them to grow. But in all these small details, our Master Gardener knows what they need and provides for them accordingly. And He gave us beautiful flowers that bring us so much joy for the allotted time they are with us.

This is where today's fruit, joy, enters, because joy in Scripture is not the same as happiness-when-things-go-well. Dallas Willard defined joy as a pervasive sense of well-being, a gladness rooted in the goodness of God rather than our circumstances. That kind of joy cannot be manufactured; it is our portion as beloved of the Lord. But can we grow joy like flowers, I wonder? I think in a way we can. Joy grows in the soil of attention and care. I believe that the more we slow down and take notice and appreciation of the small things, we can better see, with clearer vision, all of the little wonders the Lord blesses us with. Joy is an attitude for us to wear even when, and most especially when, our circumstances prove to be the opposite. It sounds nice, right? But it is sometimes very, very difficult to do. What are some of the ways we can practice joy?

John Mark Comer often observes that what we give our attention to is, in the end, what shapes the people we become. Give your attention all summer to outrage and comparison and you will become anxious and thin-souled; give it to the works of God, including His work in a square foot of meadow, and joy begins to feel less like a mood and more like a residence. Attention is a form of prayer. It is also a choice, made moment by moment, about where the eyes of your heart will graze.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow,” Jesus concludes, “for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.” The wildflowers have no filing system for tomorrow's troubles, and their Maker has never once forgotten them. Seek first His kingdom, He promises, and everything else will be added, including, quietly, along the roadside of an unhurried life, joy.

Psalm 90, written by Moses, a man who knew something about long journeys up the mountain and the limited nature of time, opens with the vastness of God, acknowledging His trustworthy nature (“from everlasting to everlasting you are God”), and then reminds us of our own nature: limited, spanning a certain number of years.

In this Psalm, Moses asks God, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Moses is essentially doing math, asking God to help him make his days on earth matter.

We are more than halfway through this plan, and we've been looking at our midyear review of 2026, so this would be a good time to stop and pray this prayer, asking the Maker of Time to help us number our days. The fact that our summer is limited, that our life is limited, is what brings glory to our God as we move through our times and seasons. Summer will end, our children get older, our bodies change; we do not stay the same. But because of this, it makes each moment more precious and sweet. I like to think that when Moses asked God to help him number his days, he was not panicking or asking out of fear, but rather because he had such an intimate moment with God that he recognized how finite our time really is on earth. I read a quote once that said, “hurry responds by cramming, and wisdom responds by choosing,” and I believe it fits well here. Numbering our days doesn't mean we need to make every day so full that our bodies and minds cannot bear the weight of it; I believe numbering our days means we need to be more selective about what we choose to do. Who do we spend time with that brings us refreshment? Which friendships are we engaged in that promote gossip and speaking badly of others? Is that practice of gossip numbering our days well?

This brings us to our next fruit: goodness. Goodness, in Scripture, is not just being nice; it is active, chosen, and generous rightness, a love with a goal and direction. Paul makes the link between time and goodness in this verse: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time… therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15–17). How do we walk in our daily lives, knowing our time is limited? How can we better serve our families? This verse is asking us to examine our daily habits so that, in our limited time, we can bring out the best in ourselves and others.

Numbering our days, making the best use of time, requires us to ask difficult questions. This is where your midyear inventory becomes a midyear recalibration. Ask yourself questions like: Did God ask me to do this? Did this bear fruit in me? Does it bear fruit in others? Am I doing this out of obligation?

In one of Lysa TerKeurst's books, she writes on the art of making choices. This book was especially helpful for me in a season when I was in university, balancing church commitments and a full school schedule. She describes in her book that every time you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. This principle is especially important as we look at the fruit of goodness and numbering our days. The reality is that when we accept a commitment to doing something, we are, in fact, saying no to something else. This is just life. So then the question is not always choosing a good thing over a bad thing, but choosing a good thing over another good thing. For example, I want to serve in church, but how can I balance that with my own family time? What does that look like for you? Or another example, I have a lot of friend groups, but I need to spend more time studying. Asking God these questions may sound silly, but God expects us to consider how we spend our days.

Number your days, then, not with dread but with intention. Half of 2026 remains. Spend it like it's precious. It is.

Today we get to talk about a wonderfully physical kind of rest: naps. Who doesn't love a nap? For many of us, Sunday afternoon after church is when that sweet nap arrives, a body finally allowed to rest after a morning spent worshiping and hearing God's Word. In Psalm 4, written on one of David's roughest nights, he prays, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (4:8). Sleep is where we refuel and heal. God designed it to be restful, though for any of us, there are nights when it simply isn't. On those nights, David's words become a quiet confidence: God is in charge of all things, and that includes my sleep.

I read something online once about sleep as an act of worship, and I find it beautifully fitting to include here: “Sleep, in other words, is a nightly act of theology. Every time you close your eyes, you preach an eight-hour sermon to your own soul about who really runs the world. The insomnia of anxious striving says: it all depends on me. The sleep of the beloved says: my Father has the night shift.”

In the busyness of daily life, we tend to push sleep aside. We go to bed later and later, scrolling social media or falling asleep in front of the TV. We've all been there. But I truly believe nighttime is sacred, a space where we can decompress and sit lovingly in those hours before sleep, letting the Holy Spirit's reflective light review our day and guide us toward better choices tomorrow. When we rest well, when we sleep well, we make better choices, and better choices make us more loving.

Which brings me to our next fruit: love. We often think of this fruit in the context of loving others, which is enormously important and valuable for our growth in our walk with Jesus. But I wonder, what about how lovingly we take care of ourselves, so that we actually have something to give? Many of us have heard the saying, “you can't pour from an empty cup,” and it's very true. As we've walked this journey of discovering rest together, I've had many conversations with others about what keeps them from resting, and a big common thread is expectation. Most of us are afraid of disappointing someone, so we push ourselves past our capacity. That's part of being human. We overwork to feel worthy. We overcommit to feel needed. But walking in the fruit of love means we don't need to make ourselves more worthy or more valuable to others, because we already are His beloved, whether we feel it or not.

So how can we practice better sleep as we walk in the fruit of the Spirit, love? Can we keep our phones out of the bedroom, in another room, so we're not tempted to scroll or watch one more video? Maybe it's journaling by candlelight instead. The lights in our homes tend to keep us wired, so choosing something softer can signal to our bodies that it's time to rest. Maybe it's praying a single verse of Scripture, or making yourself a cup of tea, no phone, please!

Walking in love with others, I believe, starts with choosing better for ourselves, and sleep is a good place to begin. In a culture that loves to brag about how busy and exhausted it is, can we instead be like David, and simply trust God enough to sleep?

We are the house the Lord is building, and He has the night watch covered. We can sleep in peace.

We are at the last day, and it feels right to end where all healthy things begin, rooted and planted. I want us to look at two psalms as we close this plan. Psalm 92:12–14 says, “The righteous flourish like a palm, grow like a cedar, stay full of sap and green, and bear fruit even in old age.” And Psalm 1 paints, interestingly, the very same picture: the blessed one is “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season.” These two psalms are some of my favorites, because of the vibrant imagery God uses to describe what He's calling us to be, strong, steadfast, healthy, and green.

Ten days ago, we began this plan trying to stop running on empty. We'll end it learning to be a tree. Yes, a tree. Trees do not hustle. Trees do not have a list of goals. Trees are simply planted in the right place, and everything else, their capacity to bear fruit or flowers, comes with time. Trees don't have to prove themselves; they were planted in God's creation, and they are sustained by His provision.

We've spent these ten days looking at the fruit of the Spirit, and how overextended, busy lives aren't conducive to bearing healthy fruit. But as we close this study, let's look at the full verse one more time. Paul writes, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” So let's linger on the last one: self-control.

Flourishing like a tree in God's garden means making wiser choices about our schedules, like we discussed earlier, but it also means practicing self-restraint in how we govern ourselves, our habits, our impulses. Flourishing isn't always easy, but collaborating with the Holy Spirit lets us rely on His strength to master our habits, rather than white-knuckling our way there alone.

And here's the last thing worth noticing as we close: this list isn't nine separate fruits, it's one. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control all work together, made visible in a single life, one that walks in step with God, unhurried, in His garden.

As we close Day Ten, my hope is that this summer of slowing down has helped all of us make better choices, rest well, and grow, so that we can run well into the fall.