We are made for fruitfulness - but fruitfulness is different than achievement or accomplishment. We’re often driven by latter, while we are made for the former. As we talked about Sunday, when Jesus says, “I came that they might have life more abundant” (John 10:10), he wasn’t saying that we should have an abundance of things in our lives, or an abundance of awards, achievements, accomplishments and accolades. There is a difference between a life of abundance and an abundant life. What we truly long for, what we desire in our souls, is MORE LIFE IN OUR LIVES.
Fruitfulness is not something we pour into our lives; fruitfulness naturally spills out from us when our lives are filled with life. The bearing of fruit is something talked about repeatedly in scripture. In fact, it’s the first command given to humanity in the Creation story. After God creates humanity in God’s image, male and female, the very next verse says: “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (Genesis 1:28). We are made to be fruitful.
We’re created out of the overflow of the Good Life that is God, made to create more overflow of that goodness. And as long as we stay grounded in that Spirit - as long as we stay soul-centered - the fruit that our lives produce looks like this: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). An abundant life is a life overflowing with all of that!
So the question then becomes… how do I produce more of that kind of fruit in my life? It may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but the answer is not to work harder to produce that kind of fruit. Hard work produces achievement; fruit is produced naturally. But fruit is only produced naturally when the fruit-bearer is receiving the proper nourishment. You don’t get more or better fruit from a plant by coaxing it out; you get more and better fruit by making sure the plant gets the proper amount of light and that the soil is rich and well-watered. As John Ortberg puts it, “A tree’s job is not to try to bear fruit; the tree’s job is to abide near the water.”
When we find ourselves lacking in the abundant life fruits of the Spirit, we should ask ourselves this: Where, and in Whom, am I abiding?
Daily prayer: Lord, help me to abide in You.