What Are Your Character Fruits?
Senior English Assignment: Blog Posts
Guest Blogger: Jolie Uwera
This semester, the Senior English students participated in creating weekly blog posts about growth mindset. Each Friday’s classes allowed the students to explore their preferred skills or areas of their lives to improve upon. With much trepidation, the students began blogging about their growth mindset selected skill. Even though the topic was broad, the students committed to changing or improving one area of their lives. We have decided to share one of our student’s blog posts about her growth mindset related to her character. We hope that you receive a blessing and inspiration from her post.
When we talk about character, it’s clear to see that most people would much rather have money or fame instead of an honest character. Being a woman or man of character in modern times isn’t something that’s really seen as desirable anymore. It’s becoming that less and less people believe having an honest character is something worth pursuing. Our environments and childhood are two large factors that determine not only what we believe character to be but also in whether we want to live a life of character. Regardless of the time or civilization, money has always been seen as something that has worth and value. In history, it shows that if you have money then you’ve succeeded in life, while as character has been left in the past as more and more people have adapted the mindset that as long as they have fame and money, then they have no need for anything else. We’ve replaced the pursuit of character for the pursuit of money and fame, regardless of what we have to do along the way to get there.
““Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” ”
When I first wrote my title question I laughed because I knew some would react in the same way that I did when I first began to understand what character is and the fruits your character produces. Before going into high school, I had a really hard time of doing the right things for the right reasons. I had trouble with treating those who treated me unfairly with kindness and respect because to me, it made no sense as to why they should have my kindness when they treated me unfairly. Our sinful world makes it really difficult to want to be a man or woman of character because so often at times it seems as though no one around us cares about what it means to possess character. I’ve grown to want to seek having an honest character more than the temporary things the world offers me. Character has become real to me in the way that I don’t try to be a good person because of how I will look to others or because it’s the right thing to do but I now pursue character because the most important person in my life had the greatest character. Jesus is a man of character and His life and the way He lived each day is a testimony of the character He had. The fruit of Jesus’s character is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus is the One who gives me character and by Him living in me, the fruits of my life will reflect His character alive in me, no matter how the world or my circumstances may change.
