Why You’re Not Seeing the Fruit of the Spirit (And What to Do About It) | Ava Pennington

The fruit of the Spirit can sound beautiful—but feel out of reach. Ava Pennington shares her journey through spiritual drought and anxiety to true fruitfulness—not through striving, but surrender to the Spirit. Join us to discover how you can flourish in Christ through the Holy Spirit's work—not by working harder, but by surrendering more fully to God's grace.

Check out Ava's new book, Flourish: Grace-Centered Practices to Protect and Grow a Fruitful Life in Christ

Scripture referenced:

• Galatians 5:22-23
• Genesis 3:1
• James 1:14
• Hebrews 10:25
• 2 Corinthians 3:18
• Romans 12:2
• Matthew 26:39
• Ephesians 6:10

Ava's favorite Bible study tools:

ESV Journaling Bible | NASB Large Print | Double-Ended Bible Highlighters | Sticky Note Set | Bible Gateway | Biblehub | Blueletter Bible

Learn more about Ava Pennington:
Website | Facebook | X | Pinterest

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Chapters

• 0:04 Welcome to Coffee and Bible Time
• 1:32 Ava's Journey Through Anxiety
• 5:40 What Flourishing in Christ Looks Like
• 9:12 Protecting Your Spiritual Growth
• 14:40 Fruit for Others, Not Just Ourselves
• 23:46 Finding Grace in Surrender
• 32:55 Bible Study Resources and Farewell

Transcript

Ellen Krause: 0:04

At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I'm Ellen, your host, and I am so glad that you are joining us today.

Ellen Krause: 0:37

I want to start this conversation by reading these familiar words from Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. We know so many of us know that passage, and we know that these words are more than a list to strive for. They're evidence that the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in our hearts. But if we're honest, many of us feel like we're not bearing that kind of fruit as often or as deeply as we would like. Maybe patience just feels out of reach, maybe joy has faded or maybe kindness feels costly. If that's where you are today, this episode is for you.

Ellen Krause: 1:33

I'm joined by Ava Pennington, author, bible teacher and someone who has walked with God through seasons of both fruitfulness and struggle. Ava has spent years helping believers grow in their faith with groups such as the Christian Authors Network and Bible Study Fellowship International. She is here today to share her wisdom with those of us who are longing to not just look spiritually mature, but to truly live a fruitful life rooted in Christ. We're going to talk about what it means to nurture the fruit of the Spirit, how to protect it when life presses in, and why grace not striving is the soil where growth really happens. Eva, thank you so much for joining us today.

Ava Pennington: 2:22

Thank you for hosting me. I appreciate it and I so agree with what you've just said about the focus not being just on striving, because that is certainly something I've had to learn.

Ellen Krause: 2:32

Yes, me as well. Why don't we start by having you share a part of your own spiritual journey where you felt like you weren't flourishing, and how God met you there?

Ava Pennington: 2:46

Absolutely. There was a season in my life where I struggled with anxiety attacks and it was a time in which I was actually teaching Bible studies, I was leading small groups in my church and I felt like such a fraud because here I was experiencing these anxiety attacks which I didn't share with anybody other than my husband, and I was working in a corporate career, I was doing a lot of international travel and they occurred mostly when I was in an unfamiliar venue, when I was somewhere that I'd never been before. I realize now it had a lot to do with my desire to control and I was out of control in those unfamiliar places. But during that season I tried everything possible. I memorized scripture, I read scripture.

Ava Pennington: 3:39

In the middle of the panic attack or anxiety attack, I would pull out my Bible, I would pray, nothing, nothing helped. And then one day I sensed the Lord impress on my heart and I, you know, I didn't hear a loud voice from heaven. I just sensed the Holy Spirit saying to me you trust me for eternity. Can you not trust me for the next five minutes? And I thought, okay, I can do that. So when the anxiety attack hit, I would look at my take off my watch and look at the time and say okay, for the next five minutes, lord, I'm going to trust you. And then the five minutes were up and said okay, for the next five minutes, I'm going to trust you. And it became an issue of trust and over. It didn't change overnight, but over a period of months and years. The anxiety attacks vanished as God met me with his peace, not a piece I struggled for or strove for.

Ellen Krause: 4:42

Oh, ava, thank you for just being so vulnerable and sharing that. I know so many people who struggled. I've had a panic attack before and it's quite frightening and, like you said, it's when you're feeling this out of control. But I love how God impressed on your heart just to trust him and if you can do that in those small increments, what a beautiful thing that we're allowing him right to do the work, as opposed to us trying to do it all ourselves.

Ava Pennington: 5:14

Absolutely, it really did For me. I'm somebody who wants to strive and work and put in the effort and accomplish the goals. I'm very task oriented and God's been working with me on that too. But it meant letting go of that, and it was only when I let go of that that I was able to receive his peace Incredible.

Ellen Krause: 5:40

Well, why don't you paint a picture for us of what you see a flourishing, fruitful life in Christ what that really looks observed when we resemble our Savior to a greater and greater degree.

Ava Pennington: 6:11

To respond to situations, to trouble, to trial, like he did when he was on earth, To have the priorities he had, To love like he did, To have the patience he did, To experience peace in storms the way he did, to be faithful and gentle. I mean all that fruit of the Spirit, really. Those nine displays of the fruit of the Spirit are really the communicable attributes of God. These are his attributes. I mean we can't have all of God's attributes. Obviously, right, he has attributes like being omnipotent, all-powerful or omniscient, all-knowing. Those are attributes that belong to him alone. But the communicable ones and what I mean by that word is that the ones he can communicate to us and grow in us are attributes such as the fruit of the Spirit, and so the more we can resemble Christ. I think that's a picture of a flourishing life and it's exemplified in these individual facets of the fruit.

Ellen Krause: 7:17

You do such an excellent job, you know in the book of kind of laying out each one of those and what you said, that we want to grow to look like Christ. But unless we know what Christ looks like, unless we are prioritizing studying and reading God's word and knowing who Christ is and what those characters are, that we will struggle with that. And I love how you said in your example of love that Satan that's something that he wants to do is distract us from loving God first and really understanding who Christ is.

Ava Pennington: 7:56

I think often Satan's tactics and he has a number of them and I do go through them in the book but I think often we look for we want to be on guard for a frontal attack from Satan, that he's going to attack our love and say you can't love this person, and he does that. But often his attacks are not frontal attacks. They come in the back door or the side door, where all he has to do is distract us, change our priorities, get us to focus on other things, focus on our own needs or our own desires, our own agenda, our own wants, and it's not a frontal attack, so we're not on guard against it. And that's one of the things, one of his tactics that he uses to attack all of the fruit of the spirit. We need to be on guard and that's when I wrote the book. It was just something I wanted to focus on. Why are we struggling so much? And maybe it's because we're expecting attacks to come from one direction and they're coming from another.

Ellen Krause: 9:01

Absolutely.

Ava Pennington: 9:12

Hmm, absolutely, what's one practical way that we can actually protect our spiritual growth when we feel like we're under attack? Independent person Surrender has never come easy for me and, frankly, the problem for many of us is that, especially myself, is that we don't know how to surrender, because the word surrender has such negative connotations, especially in our Western culture, where surrender is equated with weakness, and so we need to or let me start with me, I needed to learn how to surrender to God. I think, again, it boils down to trust, and I love. There's a great quote from CS Lewis that I think describes the issue so authentically.

Ava Pennington: 10:03

See, as Lewis said, we're not necessarily doubting that God will do his best for us. We're just wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. And isn't that often how we view trusting and surrendering to God? I want to surrender, I say I am, but then, when trials hit, I'm wondering okay, you know, I know God knows what's best and he's going to do his best for me, but how much is it going to hurt? You know, and again, that's the enemy, appealing to our natural tendency to want to be comfortable and to pursue convenience. So the enemy doesn't have to work very hard. I think often we blame the enemy for so much. You know it's the devil's fault, and I wish this weren't true. But all too often in my own life I cooperate with the enemy in what he's doing so that he doesn't have to work very hard, because I'm giving in to my own natural desires.

Ellen Krause: 11:02

Right, right. Well, I was just thinking about the idea of surrender, and Satan targets our need for control right, and so surrendering is very hard when we want to stay in control Absolutely.

Ava Pennington: 11:20

Absolutely, and this is coming from. Absolutely, and this is coming from.

Ellen Krause: 11:28

I call myself a recovering control addict. Yes, I think most of us are to one degree or another. For sure, you mentioned how the enemy can steal from our spiritual lives. Share a little bit about how our listeners can identify those losses and use biblical principles to reclaim them.

Ava Pennington: 11:47

Sure, we talk about the enemy stealing our fruit often, that he steals our joy how many times? I mean, I think there are books that are written on joy stealers or peace stealers, and so we use that term. And the enemy can't actually steal what God has given us, even though it feels that way, and so we use that word to describe it. But what he actually does is he's very practiced at distracting our focus with lies and planting doubts and serving up temptations that are geared to our natural desires. And the best weapon, the best way to identify those points of vulnerability and identify the biblical principles that God has given us, to reclaim those areas of vulnerability, I believe, is to know the Word of God well, To not just read it but to study it and to understand what God is teaching us, Because the word of God includes encouragement and exhortation, but it also includes warnings and preparation to stand against the things that get in the way of what God is trying to do and grow in our life. I mean those lies and doubts. They go all the way back to Genesis. When you know, what did Satan say to Eve? Did God say? We need to know what God has said. We need to know what the Word says. We need to be aware of temptations.

Ava Pennington: 13:22

I mean, James 1.14 talks about how, when we're tempted, when we're lured and enticed by our own desires and we think I'll be prepared for that frontal attack of Satan and we don't understand that, that particular verse, the words lured and enticed in the original Greek they referred to terms that were used in setting hunting traps and fishing with bait. So we're prepared for that frontal attack and meanwhile Satan is setting a sneaky little trap or he's luring us in with bait that looks very attractive to us and our guard is let down. So I keep coming back. I know, you know, most of your listeners might say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know We've got to study God's word. But yes, we do, we absolutely do. What a wonderful weapon God has given us, not just a tool to grow, but a weapon to stand against the things that would get between us and God.

Ellen Krause: 14:24

I couldn't agree with you more, ava, and I would just add to that at least something that has helped me in addition to studying God's word is doing that together with other believers and some type of a Bible study group, because I've gleaned so much just from what other people have shared and things that are going on in their life that maybe they're struggling with. I'm not right now, but I might be one day, and just having sort of a more expansive understanding of God's word and how people use it in their lives, I think in that group setting is just so powerful.

Ava Pennington: 15:10

Absolutely. I think one of the tactics of Satan is to isolate us and to make us think that we're the only one going through this. So we can't let anybody else know our struggles, because what would they think of us? They wouldn't think that we were this wonderful, mature included discussion questions at the end of each chapter of the book because to me, we grow in community. You know, there are no lone rangers in the church and that's why the Bible tells us don't forget to get and we learn.

Ava Pennington: 15:54

I mean, as I opened up and told people about my anxiety attacks, it took me a long time to be able to open up. I mean, I was a Bible teacher back then and how could I do this? But the more I opened up, then people felt safe to say you know, I've been experiencing that too, and all of a sudden you don't feel alone. Now you know we're in community and we can help each other and encourage each other. Not that the answers are going to come from each other, the answers are going to come from God's Word. But we can encourage each other to search for those answers together.

Ellen Krause: 16:29

Absolutely Amen to that. Eva, were there any challenges that you faced while studying and writing about the fruit of the Spirit, and how did you balance staying both theologically rich while also being practical?

Ava Pennington: 16:48

Well, the first challenge was starting with my own dissatisfaction. Why didn't I have more peace and joy, and you know all of the patience and why. What was the disconnect? Where was the disconnect? What was I missing? And that's one of the reasons that, as I I mean, I was structuring the book and trying to figure out the best way to structure it, and I ended up in each chapter, starting with how the enemy works, what works against our fruit, and then the next section of each chapter was okay, what does God say about our fruit? Because I don't know about you, ellen, but often what I think on a subject and what God says about that subject aren't always the same thing. So I need to see how God views his fruit, and I learned as I was writing that I needed to change the way I viewed some of the facets of the fruit of the Spirit, and the biggest challenge for me was applying it not just writing it for somebody else, but applying it.

Ava Pennington: 17:51

And I can tell you that after I wrote the chapter on patients, I wrote this chapter and then I experienced a season of some health issues. I had several surgeries all at once and it was just. It was a crazy, crazy time and people would ask me well, you know, how are you doing, how's the recovery going? And I would say, oh, it's fine, it's moving in the right direction, but I'm just so impatient because it's not moving fast enough. I need it to move faster. But I'm just so impatient because it's not moving fast enough, I need it to move faster.

Ava Pennington: 18:15

And I must have responded that way once too many times, because one day after I had had that conversation with a friend in my quiet time the next morning I just felt the Holy Spirit saying to me you're impatient. Huh, didn't you just write a whole chapter on patience? Maybe you need to go back and reread what you wrote, because it's not just for your readers, it's for you, ava. And again, when I've shared that, somebody said well, how do you know you weren't just telling yourself that? I said I promise you I would never have told myself that. But isn't God so good and so gracious that he speaks to our heart and he teaches us from his word and that, with the indwelling, holy Spirit is there not just to convict but to encourage too? And so I really appreciated that conviction. It's just the goodness of God toward us.

Ava Pennington: 19:16

Yes, absolutely, and you know in some respects it's kind of like a wink.

Ellen Krause: 19:28

You know God winking saying Ava, remember, Hello, I gave you the spirit to write that chapter and right to to use um is so important actually. Well, that's kind of wanted to talk about just encouraging people in the practical application. There was a paragraph in your book that I just want to read for our listeners because I think it'll be helpful for the next part of this conversation. You said the fruit of the Spirit isn't intended for me to feel better about myself. Each of the nine displays of fruit serves two primary purposes. First, for us to become more like Christ, to give him the glory among his people.

Ellen Krause: 20:09

And second, to grow us as vessels through which the Lord blesses others. After all, a tree does not feed on its own fruit. Rather, it produces fruit to feed others. So, really, what you're saying is the fruit of the Spirit has these two main purposes becoming like Christ and blessing others. How can we stay focused on both, especially when life feels very overwhelming or spiritually dry?

Ava Pennington: 20:42

And that does happen, right, life does. It can feel overwhelming and it can feel spiritually dry. That's a reality, I think. From my own experience and from talking with others, we've been taught that the priority of the Christian life is giving to and serving others. Right, we're always to be other-focused, not self-focused, but we're severely limited in our ability to give if we aren't growing ourselves. And so it's two sides of the same coin.

Ava Pennington: 22:15

If we're feeling overwhelmed by life or if I'm feeling as if I'm stuck in a spiritual wilderness, my first step is to ask why? Why am I feeling this way? Have I taken my eyes off the Lord? Have I taken my focus off him? Am I giving in and throwing myself a pity party because life isn't working out the way I want it to, and I've thrown my share of pity parties over the years? Or maybe what lies have I fallen for that I didn't realize? And it's only then that I'm free to share the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as he's nurturing it in me and I'm cooperating with Him that I can then share it with others. So I think there is that focus on both, understanding that I can't give unless I am growing in my relationship with the Lord, and unless I am seeing him nurture that fruit in me, we can't give what we don't have.

Ellen Krause: 23:23

Right, that makes so much, so much sense. A lot of us feel like we naturally show some fruit of the spirit, maybe more than others, and then we really struggle with one in particular. What would you say to the woman who feels like there is one fruit she just doesn't see in her life at all?

Ava Pennington: 23:49

I can so relate to that, ellen, I promise you I am naturally drawn to certain aspects of the fruit. You know love, talking about love and joy and peace. When we get to the topics of patience and self-control, you know not so much those, you know, those are a little more convicting. Those are a little more convicting. There's always going to be areas that God is going to work on in us and I think even with the fruit that we feel comfortable with and we think, oh, I don't have to work on those, I'm good, there's always room for growth and improvement. Right, wanting to peel back another layer of that onion and just see what's the next step of growth. But it's also willing to be honest with ourselves. I'll give you an example. When I first taught on the fruit of the spirit years ago, early in my Christian walk, I had a class at church and it was a nine-week class or 10-week class, and so I started each week, especially the first couple of weeks. I started by welcoming the people who were there and letting them know this is a class on the fruit of the Spirit and we're going to talk about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. And I would hold out my fingers and every time I would look at my fingers and say wait a minute, that's only eight fingers. What? Which? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, gentleness Forgot that one. Well, that happened two or three weeks in a row and at one point on the third week, one of the class members, who was a friend and she said it with a smile and I loved her for it but after I did that for a third week in a row, went through the whole list, came up with eight fingers up and thinking okay, what am I missing? She laughed and she said maybe you're missing, gentleness, because that's the one God wants to work on in your life. And we all laughed. The class laughed, I laughed and I looked at her and I said you're absolutely right, that is an area that God has been working on in me.

Ava Pennington: 25:59

I came out of a corporate culture. I worked on Wall Street, gent. I appreciated. You know we all laughed at the joke, but that was a fruit I needed to focus on. So we all have that. You know. Don't be discouraged that we all have to work on all of them, and God is working on all of them in us. So don't be discouraged, but be open to the Holy Spirit's conviction and encouragement and equipping as he nurtures all of the fruit. I often say it's not, we don't pick and choose the fruit. It's one fruit, nine aspects of the one fruit of the Spirit, and it's a package deal. In God's eyes it's a package deal. They're not separate. They're not nine different fruit trees with nine different fruit. It's one tree with nine different aspects of the fruit.

Ellen Krause: 27:02

And that, to me, is so encouraging, that God does give that gift of all of them to us, gift of all of them to us, and through his grace we can step by step grow in sort of the sanctification process of becoming more like Christ. What would you say would be one or two grace-centered practices from your book Flourish that listeners can begin using today even?

Ava Pennington: 27:35

I think it goes back to resembling Christ and the concept of surrender and growing in our resemblance to Christ. The Bible speaks of being transformed or conformed to the image of Christ, and one thing I had to learn the hard way is that cannot happen by trying harder, working smarter and doing better. That's not how it happens. It happens through surrender, just as Christ, in his earthly ministry, was fully surrendered to the will of his Father. I mean, let's face it, how many times have we come across a difficult situation or a person, a difficult person, and we grit our teeth and we vow to be more patient. If it kills us, we're going to be more patient with that person, only to fail miserably. And so then what do we do? We beat ourselves up and we determine the next time I'm in that situation or the next time I see that person, I'm going to try harder. And we end up in a constant cycle of failure. That affects not just our spiritual health, but it affects our mental and emotional health too, because when we are in that situation again, we just tense up and we've got that knot in our stomach. You know that I am going to do better. The alternative is to rest in God's grace and draw strength from the Holy Spirit, not just daily. I gave up on asking for that daily a long time ago, minute by minute. We need his grace and his strength.

Ava Pennington: 29:10

There's a Bible verse, and I think it's in Galatians, where Paul says be strong in the strength of his might. And if you think about that, there's two pieces to that. We're to be strong, but what's the source of our strength? It's his might, not ours. So it's not about me committing to trying harder, working smarter, doing better. I'm going to be strong, I'm going to pull it up from my toes if I have to, but it's being strong in his strength. And that brings us back to surrender A word. It has taken me a long time to be able to stay without clenching my teeth. Okay, we just it's, but it's key to the Christian life and it's key to the Holy Spirit and nurturing his fruit in our life.

Ellen Krause: 30:04

Absolutely. I would add to that to just prayer and asking God to help us with accepting his grace and to help us to be able to surrender. And the other thing, too, is just I find that having the accountability, an accountability partner, to say, hey, I'm struggling with one of these, maybe it's self-control, maybe it's shopping for me, shopping I'm struggling with that, or whatever it might be for someone else and just trying asking to be lifted up in prayer, understanding those sneaky attacks, like you said, of the enemy and things to watch out for and be on the alert for, that might be distracting my attention. And so thank you so much for just sharing that. Those very simple things, but things that we don't, you know, necessarily focus on like we should be.

Ava Pennington: 31:13

And you're absolutely right. Surrender involves going to the Lord and saying I don't have the ability, I don't have the capacity. Lord, I need you to give that to me. I need it to come from you, as your Holy Spirit works in my life. We have that privilege. I mean, that's what Jesus did for us. He restored us our relationship with the Father, and yet all too often we still try to do things on our own.

Ellen Krause: 31:40

Right, right, Eva. Where can listeners go to find out more information about you and your ministry and your book?

Ava Pennington: 31:50

Well, the primary starting place would be my website, and my website is my name, so it's avapenningtoncom. You can learn about the books that I've written and my social media links, and I want to encourage your listeners in the coming months. The book officially releases in October and so once the book's out, I will be hosting a monthly fruit of the spirit challenge on social media. So we're going to do a challenge, you know a month of kindness or patience, and we're going to have some fun activities focusing on the nine facets of the fruit, and I hope your listeners will join us On the Nine Facets of the Fruit.

Ellen Krause: 32:28

And I hope your listeners will join us. I love that. Okay, well, we will make sure we include those links in our show notes. Eva, before you go, I have to ask a couple of our favorite questions. We ask all of our guests what Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?

Ava Pennington: 32:48

Well, I actually have two go-tos. One is my for just reading, just reading, I use the ESV, the English Standard Version. It's conversational enough, but it's very accurate and so that's a favorite for me. But for in-depth Bible study, my go-to is the New American Standard Bible, the NASB, because I find that, while it's not quite as conversational as the ESV, often when I look up words from other translations and they say, well, you know, this is what it means, and then I go to my NASB and that's the word that they actually use. So I have one for just reading and one for in-depth study.

Ellen Krause: 33:38

Excellent, okay, thanks for sharing that. Do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies that you like to use?

Ava Pennington: 33:44

Okay, don't judge me, but I am a highlighter fanatic, highlighters and post-it notes, and I have highlighters in every color you can imagine and that's my weakness. Oh, fun.

Ellen Krause: 34:01

That's so great. Okay, lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Ava Pennington: 34:10

I have three. One is BibleGatewaycom that I use for larger passages and kind of chunks of the Bible. It also has some great commentaries as well. And then I use BibleHubcom when I want to compare translations of individual verses. So if I'm looking for a verse and I specifically want to see how various translations handle it, I'll type the verse in BibleHubcom and it pops up a list of all the different translations of that particular verse. So I get to compare and that helps add a richness where it's all on one screen.

Ava Pennington: 34:54

And then my third and I think it's probably my ultimate favorite would be blueletterbibleorg, because that not only you can type in any translation you want, but that gives you Greek and Hebrew word meanings. It gives you tools to really see so I can look up and look up a verse, find the word. It'll tell me the Greek or Hebrew definition. It'll also tell me where else it was used in the Bible and of course it has commentaries and other tools as well. So if I had to pick up the three, that would probably be my ultimate favorite. But I have direct shortcut links to all three of those websites on my laptop and I'm clicking in and out of all three of them constantly.

Ellen Krause: 35:40

Great advice. Okay, thank you so much for sharing those with us. And, ava, what a pleasure to have had you with us enjoying your teaching today. It's been such a delight.

Ava Pennington: 35:53

Well, thank you, I've just enjoyed having a conversation with you, so thanks All right.

Ellen Krause: 35:58

You are welcome to our listeners. If you want to learn how to better nurture the fruit of the spirit from a Grace-Filled Approach, I hope you'll check out Ava's book called Flourish. We have it linked for you in the show notes. Thank you all for listening. May God bless you as you continue to grow in love, joy, peace and every good thing he's cultivating in your life. Until next time, keep flourishing in Him.