Fruitfulness vs. Success

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

What is the difference between success and fruitfulness? They are not the same thing, at least in the way our world defines success. You get to success by striving, trying, making. You get to fruit by receiving, waiting, and growing. Success by definition usually involves visible and immediate results. Fruit is often hidden from you as it is happening and may not be fully recognized in your lifetime. Success deals in quantifiable currency like money, prestige, and influence. Fruitfulness deals in unmeasurable qualities. With success, the ends often justifies the means, whereas with fruit, the end exists as an indication of the means. Success leads to more and more success, in an ongoing cycle. Fruit exist to deliver the seed and die so that new fruit can grow. 

The Bible doesn’t talk much about success. But it speaks a great deal of fruitfulness: every healthy tree bears good fruit (Matthew 7); Jesus is the vine we abide in to bear fruit (John 15); the wisdom from above is full of good fruits (James 3); blessed is the man who yields his fruit in season (Psalm 1); walk in the fruit of the light (Ephesians 5); receive fruit that leads to sanctification (Romans 6). The story began with fruit taken when it should not have been (Genesis 3) and ends with the twelve kinds of fruit on the tree of life (Revelation 22).

It takes some learning, I think, to value fruitfulness over success in your life. To learn to point your life in the direction of fruitfulness rather than success, and to have the eyes to see the joy and reward that it brings. 

Nouwen puts it this way: “There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another’s wounds. Let’s remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness.” 

And Then You

by Walter Brueggemann

We arrange our lives as best we can

to keep your holiness at bay,

with our pieties,

our doctrines,

our liturgies,

our moralities,

our secret ideologies,

Safe, virtuous, settled.

And then you –

you and your dream,

you and your visions,

you and your purposes,

you and your commands,

you and our neighbors.

We find your holiness not at bay,

but probing, pervading,

insisting, demanding.

And we yield, sometimes gladly,

sometimes resentfully,

sometimes late . . . or soon.

We yield because you, beyond us, are our God.

We are your creatures met by your holiness,

by your holiness made our true selves.

And we yield. Amen.

Fruit Is Singular

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

This verse seems grammatically incorrect: Paul says there is one thing, then lists nine things that it is. He calls these the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruits of the Spirit, what could be called a “singular plurality” or a “collective singular.” Why?

Jonathan Edwards wrote a piece called “All The Graces of Christianity Connected” in which he argues that the graces of Christianity (like faith, hope, love) always go together, depend upon one another, and are to some degree implied in one another, because they are all from the same source, achieved by the same means, and meant for the same end. For example, he says that “There is not one conversion of the soul to faith, and another conversion to love of God, and another to humility, and another to repentance, and still another to love of man; but all are produced by one and the same work of the Spirit.” It is the one Holy Spirit that produces this one fruit in us—yes, there are different qualities of the fruit, but it is one fruit.

That’s how you know if you are bearing real fruit, rather than just being kind by your own efforts, or just being patient because that tends to be your disposition. The fruit that is from the Spirit always grow up together; you don’t get one part of it growing without all the parts growing. For example, Edwards says, we should examine our love by its faith. If we feel affectionate love for God, is it also a love that comes with a real conviction of faith in divine things? If it doesn’t, if it’s just a feeling we have, then that love won’t carry us far in duty or suffering. It’s not really love that is a fruit of the Spirit (I like his side-note, that this love is “very much like the affection which we may have towards a person we are reading of in a romance, and whom we at the same time suppose to be no other than a feigned person”).

Is our self-control marked by love, not by legalism? Does it lead us to deep joy, not resentment? Are we able to be patient with peace, not anxiety? Are we growing consistently in all of the fruit, together? Do we see how they all exist together, and work together, because they all come from and rely on the same source, the singular Holy Spirit? That is the difference between the true work of the Holy Spirit in us, and a mere list of values that we try to achieve on our own.

Fruit Attracts

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

Apparently fruit-picking is considered an essential business: Dave took the kids cherry-picking a few weekends back. Masked and laddered, they brought back a whole tub of cherries. I remember going apple-picking every fall in Virginia: it was practically a seasonal rite, replete with the attendant apple donuts and pies. Fruit basically exist to spread the seeds of the species, but they do so by being irresistibly attractive: colorful, sweet, unique. 

Nouwen writes, “How does the Spirit of God manifest itself through us? Often we think that to witness means to speak up in defense of God. This idea can make us very self-conscious. We wonder where and how we can make God the topic of our conversations and how to convince our families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues of God’s presence in their lives. But this explicit missionary endeavor often comes from an insecure heart and, therefore, easily creates divisions. The way God’s Spirit manifests itself most convincingly is through its fruits: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ These fruits speak for themselves. It is therefore always better to raise the question ‘How can I grow in the Spirit?’  than the question ‘How can I make others believe in the Spirit?’” 

Fruit don’t convince; they attract. They don’t try; they just are. This is not to say we shouldn’t be intentional and strategic in sharing the gospel, but we sometimes too easily mechanize or automate in our minds what is actually mysterious and organic. We think it is up to us. But it is really up to the Spirit, and the most attractive thing he produces in us is something we can hardly machinate or even really be aware of in ourselves. Yet this fruit is what draws others, the way birds, insects, critters and people are drawn from all over. How can we grow in the Spirit?

Fruit Reveals

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

Some leaves are distinctive enough to identify the type of tree they come from: the maple, or gingko, perhaps. Flowers or cones are even more indicative. But the most symptomatic thing a tree can display is fruit: an apple cannot be borne by anything other than an apple tree, and an apple tree cannot bear anything except apples. The inner workings of the tree, its true identity, was there all along, nothing has changed: but the moment the apples appear, the tree declares its nature.

A. W. Tozer writes, “Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. The fruit of a tree is determined by the tree, and the fruit of life by the kind of life it is. What a man is interested in to the point of absorption both decides and reveals what kind of man he is; and the kind of man he is by a secret law of the soul decides the kind of fruit he will bear. The catch is that we are often unable to discover the true quality of our fruit until it is too late! Of what do we think when we are free to think of what we will? What object gives us inward pleasure as we brood over it? Over what do we muse in our free moments? To what does our imagination return again and again? When we have answered these questions honestly we will know what kind of persons we are, and when we have discovered what kind of persons we are we may deduce the kind of fruit we will bear. If we would do holy deeds we must be holy men and women!”

As a Chinese philosopher once said, “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character.” Our thoughts, the things that most absorb our attention and mental energy, both determine and reveal who we are and thus what kind of fruit we will bear. Paul lays it out clearly: walk by the Spirit, and you will bear the fruit of the Spirit. Walk by the flesh, and you will bear the fruit of the flesh. The fruits he lists on either side are both actions and character traits. If you want to know why your character or your actions are the way they are, trace it back to how you “walk,” how you functionally direct your life, what you think on. And this is worth tracing, because we’re not always aware of it. Of what do we think when we are free to think of what we will? What object gives us inward pleasure as we brood over it? Over what do we muse in our free moments? To what does our imagination return again and again?

Fruit is Hidden

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

You don’t see many fruit trees where we come from on the East Coast, so when we moved here, we eagerly planted pomelo, apricot, guava, apple, lemon trees—only to realize that it sometimes takes years for trees to bear a significant crop (not to mention the thieving squirrels). So we planted them and did our best to not count on eating fruit anytime soon. 

There’s something similar about our lives now. Results used to be more immediate: the time from a swim heat, visual acuities measured after surgery, end-of-year shows at school. Now, we deal in relatively slow, invisible things, like how our kids relate with each other constantly at home, how we occupy our minds during spare hours with nowhere to go. I asked Dave the other day, “do you think this time will be an overall pro or con for us as a family?” and he said, “I don’t know. The losses are pretty obvious, but I think there may be even greater gains, just not in ways that we can see right now or maybe until much later.”

There there is something very spiritual about the pace of this time. It’s a pace that encourages us to let go of what we can immediately see and measure, and this is how the Holy Spirit works, hidden and slow like fruit coming to the tree. Inexorable, but not predictably quantifiable. We must let go of immediate results and accept the hiddenness of the fruit if we are to live as Jesus did, for that is often how God works.

Nouwen writes: “We belong to a generation that wants to see the results of our work. We want to be productive and see with our own eyes what we have made. But that is not the way of God’s Kingdom. Often our witness for God does not lead to tangible results. Jesus himself died as a failure on a cross. There was no success there to be proud of. Still, the fruitfulness of Jesus’ life is beyond any human measure. As faithful witnesses of Jesus, we have to trust that our lives too will be fruitful, even though we cannot see their fruit. The fruit of our lives may be visible only to those who live after us. What is important is how well we love. God will make our love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.”

Be Our Arm

“Be our arm every morning.” – Isaiah 33:2

“Your right hand upholds me.” – Psalm 63:8

“The general rule in nature is that live things are soft within and rigid without. We vertebrates are living dangerously, and we vertebrates are positively piteous, like so many peeled trees… I am sitting under a sycamore tree: I am soft-shell and peeled to the least puff of wind or smack of grit.” – Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Some days I wake up with the realization that I’m going to need some strength to get through the day. It used to be I felt like this in the face of predictably challenging events, but nowadays the feeling could happen anytime. It’s like I wake up feeling “soft-shell and peeled,” realizing how fragile indeed I am, how susceptible to my own moods and lack of reserves. How limited I am at being able to actually live into the eternal hope and joy I know myself to possess. Sometimes the chasm between knowing and feeling seems untraversable.

I’ve never had to be led about by the arm, though I’ve seen many patients come into my clinic that way. They have a different kind of gait: usually slower, as if taking it one step at a time in their minds. When you lean on someone’s arm, it starts off like that, going into the day one step at a time. The person who lends you their arm bears your weight and the weight of whatever you carry. They give you a sense of direction, not miles ahead, but far enough so you know where to put your foot down next. And unlike a cane or walking stick, there’s a kind of companionship knowing someone is beside you. It’s like that line near the end of Jane Eyre: “Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, and then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.” 

How do you get God’s strength when you don’t feel it, or feel like it? You ask. Like Isaiah, you ask. And you make some kind of decision to trust, to reach out, and not think too hard, and go forward one step at a time.

Quality Time in Quantity Time

“For God alone my soul waits in silence… For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence.” – Psalm 62:1, 5

Some say that when it comes to parenting, quality time only happens with quantity of time. There’s some truth to that: and that is undoubtedly one of the gifts of this time. When have we ever had so much quantity of time with our children? Even as someone who pretty much stayed at home most of the time before the pandemic, I am flabbergasted by the difference. 

Sometimes, though, quantity of time can get in the way of having intentional quality time. It is possible to be around someone so much that you don’t actually end up connecting with them intentionally. For example, even though I’m around my kids constantly, I often don’t end up playing with them very much. They often play around me while I do chores or get my own stuff done, but it takes some intentionality to set aside what I’m doing and actually join in with their play. Even though Dave and I see each other more than we ever have, it takes intentionality to think about the other person for their own sake and not in relation to the functional living of life. The other morning, Dave spoke some words into what he’s seen in my life the past few months, and the time he spent thinking about me to do that was meaningful.

It's this way with God too. He is, after all, omnipresent. But because we always have quantity of time with him, we can become careless about having quality time with Him. We start to see him for what he gets us, or always in relation to how we’re feeling or doing, rather than for his own sake, for who he is entirely apart from how we are. We start to take his availability for granted, giving him the leftover parts of our day.

David says, “For God alone my soul waits… For God alone, O my soul, wait.” This is not someone speaking out of convenience or functionality. Think about who in your life you wait for: you wait for your boss, you wait for your doctor, you wait to pick up your kids. The waiting itself is a statement of how important someone is to you. David’s focus is upon God. He gives him the attention of his soul, his inner being, all of who he is. He does this in silence, without the distraction of the world or even his own words. This is quality time. And he writes it as both a description and an injunction: both a truth and an exhortation. Even as we experience and know how important quality time with God is, we have to remind ourselves to do it. There is a kind of experience of God that comes throughout every day events, but there is another kind of experience that comes only when we wait for Him alone, and that’s good to remember.

Thoughts In Solitude

by Thomas Merton:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in everything I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire and I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” 

Parents As Prophets

“Then the Lord said, ‘As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush…” – Isaiah 20:3

It was hard being a prophet. Apparently the job description included giving up clothing and shoes for three years as an object lesson. The prophets brought the intangible, easy-to-brush-off realities of God to the people around them in an extremely palpable, concrete way, even if it caused them extreme discomfort and embarrassment.

Paul Tripp likes to say that the one word that describes parents the most is “ambassador.” Children don’t belong to us. They are God’s possession (Psalm 127:3) for his purpose; we are God’s agents in their lives. “The word that the Bible uses for this intermediary position,” Tripp writes, “is ‘ambassador’… The only thing an ambassador does, if he’s interested in keeping his job, is to faithfully represent the message, methods and character of the leader who has sent him.”

As an ambassador, you find your sense of identity as a parent from Jesus, not from your children. Your work as a parent is not to turn your kids into something, but to represent God and realize you have no power to change them. Your work is motivated not by what you want them to be, but by the potential of what grace could cause them to be. As an ambassador, success is not about working towards a specific catalog of horizontal outcomes, but about being faithful; it’s not about what you’ve produced but what you have done. As an ambassador, you care about your children breaking God’s law, not about the hassle or embarrassment they’ve brought you.

It’s not unlike being an Isaiah, personifying intangible spiritual truths so that they can be seen, heard, touched by the people God has put in your care. It involves an abandonment of your own agendas and preferences at some level. It involves having your own encounters with God. At heart, it involves hearing “whom shall I send?” and responding as Isaiah did: “Here I am! Send me” (6:8).

The Small and Hidden Life

“O my Strength, I will watch for you.” – Psalm 59:9

I was rereading some parts of Discernment by Henri Nouwen the other day. He writes, “Discernment reveals new priorities, directions and gifts from God. We come to realize that what previously seemed so important for our lives, loses its power over us. To our surprise, we even may experience a strange inner freedom to follow a new call or direction as previous concerns move into the background of our consciousness. We begin to see the beauty of the small and hidden life that Jesus lived in Nazareth. Most rewarding of all is the discovery that as we pray more each day, God’s will—that is, God’s concrete ways of loving us and our world—gradually is made known to us.”

In the first chapter of John, everyone is watching for Jesus: John the Baptist, who keeps insisting there is a greater one coming. Andrew, who left John to follow Jesus instead. Simon, who was brought by his brother. Philip, who answered a simple call to follow. Then there is Nathaniel, who said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Yes, apparently. Yes, and more: Jesus tells him, “you will see greater things than these.”

Life feels small and hidden these days. Life is a dish washed, an assignment uploaded, a floor vacuumed, a book read, a dispute arbitrated, another snack or meal prepared. Life is a series of unquantifiable moments—hard ones, like when the kids have successive emotional issues. Good ones, like when we sat around watching our pet snails or when Emmy kept asking us serious questions like, “which do you like better: oil or tea? A cup or a tissue? Ice or water?” God’s will involves when to speak and when to hold my tongue; when to go do something I don’t feel like doing; how to approach one of the kids when they’re having a tough moment.

We who follow Jesus will see greater things that these, but sometimes it starts in being open to the unremarkable, watching for God in the small and hidden life.