But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” begins with this line –

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;"

I think that has a practical application of the characteristics of a person who is at peace with himself and his circumstances.

What does the word peace mean to you? I remember a song from my teenage years that sourced its lyrics from Isaiah 26:3 -“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

What is the source of that kind of peace? According to Isaiah, it is found only in my reliance or trust in God and that’s point that Paul is getting at in his discussion of the fruit of the Spirit.

Earlier in the chapter we are told to “walk by the Spirit”(v.16) and to “led by the Spirit”(v.18). Later in the same chapter he writes-

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:25

So, are you able “to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs?’