In order for us to bloom and bear fruit, we have to abide in the Vine, who is Jesus. Reading God’s Word is the catalyst we need to abide in Him.
Galatians 5:22–23 says, “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” It might seem like a lot of growth to do, but this fruit grows all together like a grape cluster. Ask God to give you fresh revelation on one, then another one, and then the next one.
God wants to help you bear fruit in all your seasons. In your dark times of discouragement—when you’re frustrated and overwhelmed, when you don’t have enough money or think your life’s not where it should be—you might wonder how you can bear fruit. But you can always bear fruit if you abide in Him and His Word abides in you.
Bearing fruit happens not by accident but by intention.
My husband is my very best friend. I love him more than anything besides Jesus. When we started dating, we decided to apply John 15 to our lives. We knew we wanted our relationship to bear good fruit, because few relationships around us, dating or married, were healthy. We decided that we wanted our relationship to inspire hope, so we studied John 15 while we were dating, but we’ve found that the principles for bearing fruit apply to all areas of our lives.
John 15 says that in order to bear fruit, we have to remain on the Vine. The more we stay connected to God’s presence, the more able we are to bear good and lasting fruit. A vine gives strength and nutrients to the branches. God wants to reinforce our branches so they can hold the fruit that He’s given us without breaking.
There in John 15, Jesus is saying to us, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you” (verse 4). We hold on to God for dear life because when we remain in Him, we live fruitful lives. That’s how we endure storms. That’s how we endure the shade. We hold on to God for dear life. I think we hold on to people or our phones too much. Phones are addictive. You set your phone down; you can’t find it; then you start getting jittery. You can’t concentrate in a conversation because you’re in a panic over your lost phone. But sometimes we have to put the phone down. We have to remain in Him because that’s how we’re going to bear fruit.
Jesus continued, “A branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine…. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (verses 4–5). We’re more fruitful when we do life together and put our hope in God. We have to trust Him and ask Him to water us through His Word so that we can bear fruit.
Let Yourself Be Pruned
We have to be willing to let God cut away dead branches. He prunes us out of love, removing the branches that don’t bear fruit so that the ones that do will produce even more. Don’t despise the cutting seasons of your life. Don’t despise the times when you feel like you have few friends, because God is cutting your life back so that you can bear more fruit. Don’t despise the pruning in your life, because it’s going to take you to a richer, deeper place. Through His pruning, God gets the focus off the thing that we thought we couldn’t live without. We have to put our focus back on Him because our lives should declare His glory. So sometimes He just has to shake up our lives to remind us that He’s God, that He’s in control, and that our focus needs to be on Him.
Give Your Fruit Away
Sometimes we hold on to the gifts in our lives because we want them for ourselves, but other people need the blessing of your gift. People can be blessed by your organizational skills, your musical gift, your smile, or your ability to stand and be faithful. Thank God for people who just show up and stand with you. They don’t even need to say the right words because their showing up is a gift. Just being present in somebody’s life is a gift.
When someone’s going through a tough time like depression or divorce, they just need someone by their side. I promise you—there isn’t one thing you’re facing or one battle you’re fighting that someone else hasn’t gone through. But the Enemy tries to isolate us by making us think that we’re alone in our struggle when so many people struggle with the same issue. We need to remember that we’re in this battle together.
As you trust God with your battle and are vulnerable with others, ask someone who’s already been victorious in a similar battle to pray for you and encourage you. They will be able to say, “I might be bearing fruit right now, but you didn’t see me when I was in the shade and couldn’t see that this harvest time was coming. You didn’t see me when I thought about giving up. I don’t know how, but fruit still grew in the shade.” Some of the darkest times of my life, when I felt like God had forgotten about me, were the most fruitful, so don’t despise the tough times.
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When we remain in God, there’s no dream so big that He can’t fulfill it. When we abide in Him, there’s no desire or passion we have that will scare Him. However, that dream, desire, or passion will break us if we put our hope in its fulfillment and not in Him.
How do we remain on the Vine and bear good fruit? The concept of reading God’s Word seems so basic, but there is power in Scripture. Chains fall, blind eyes see, and deaf ears hear through the power of the Word of God. When we remain in Him by reading His Word and applying it to our lives and our situations, we make a difference in the world.
I still believe in the gifts of the Spirit. I still believe in the fruit of the Spirit. I still believe that God can resurrect dead situations. I still believe that He can take a girl who’s hopeless, broken, and downcast and give her the joy of the Lord. I still believe that God can speak peace to someone who’s so anxiety-ridden that they can’t even leave their home. I still believe that Jesus can heal anyone who feels so heavy or plagued by darkness that they can’t think about others or see a way out. I still believe that the Word of God and God’s presence can change your situation so you can bear fruit. You might feel like a tree that is dry and fruitless with scrawny branches and withering leaves, but right now, God’s Word is falling on the tree of your life. He’s reminding you that you will remain and that He will allow the rivers of His presence to flow into your life so you will bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord” (NIV). Are you trusting in God?
He’s called us to be “like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers” (verse 8, MSG). This verse is a picture of us flourishing without worry even through the hottest of summers. You may be feeling the heat or pressure of life, but God wants to give you grace. You’re not going to lose your mind. You’re not going to lose your salvation. You’re not going to lose your peace. You’re going to trust and abide in Him, and you’re going to bear much fruit.
Let’s Pray
Thank You, Jesus, that as Your daughter my life is not defined by my past but is filled with faith for the present. Lead and guide me, keep me close, equip me for the road ahead, and give me a prophetic word for what’s around the corner. Bless and strengthen my family and friendships. I pray for the sisterhood of the daughters of God. Propel us into our futures with confidence and grace. May we stay filled with wonder and awe and have a divine expectation for what’s ahead in every area of our lives. As curveballs come our way, may each of us commit to declare emphatically that You are with us, You will never fail us, and You, the Most High God, have prepared us for what’s to come. Go before Your girls, Jesus, and may we live with our eyes forever fixed on You. Amen.
17 Planted to Flourish
May is the happiest time of the year for me because my birthday, my wedding anniversary, and Mother’s Day are all included. Every May, I have this extra special time with God when I pray, read my Bible, and say, “God, speak to me about this upcoming year. What do You think it’s going to look like? Where do You want my focus? What words do You want me to meditate on throughout the year?” This year, the word that lifted off the page to me was flourish. I felt like God was inspiring me to encourage every woman around me to flourish in all that God has called her to be.
This is our season to flourish. To flourish means to break forth or to bloom.[1] God is going to call us to do this. Flowers in full bloom are gorgeous. You just can’t help but notice them. When you see flowers or gardens, remember that God is whispering to you, “I’ve started something in you, and, girl, this is your season to flourish.” Some of us might be thinking, Yes, I’m ready, willing, and able. This is going to be my season to flourish. Then others of us are thinking, You don’t even know what it took to get me to pick up this book. I’m barely holding on by a thread. I want you to know that this word is for all of us and that God is going to do something in all our hearts. Just open up. Breathe in and breathe out, exhale and relax, and you will be surprised at what begins to bloom.
Psalm 92:12–13 says, “The godly”—and he’s talking about all of us who love God—“will flourish like palm trees and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon. For they are transplanted to the Lord’s own house. They flourish in the courts of our God.” When I read that, I thought, What does it mean to flourish like a palm tree?
Strong Enough to Bend
Palm trees bend, but they don’t break. Situations in life may require us to bend, but we don’t have to break. In the 1970s, Hurricane Frederic hit the Gulf Coast, and the indigenous pine trees there just snapped under the pressure. But the palm trees bent. That could be our lives. When the storms hit and the wind and waves come, say, “I’m planted on Christ’s solid rock. I’m going to stay planted in the Word. I’m going to stay planted in a church.” You may bend so low that you almost taste dirt, but you don’t have to break. We flourish by staying planted.
For some of us, it’s so easy to be shallow and not grow roots because we’ve been hurt before. We make excuses for not digging deep because we’re afraid we’ll be hurt again. But we have to go deep in our relationship with God and others because those relational roots will enable us to stand when the winds howl or the storms of life crash against us unexpectedly. If our roots grow deep, we have something to hold on to.
There is no formula for a mess-proof life, but when we are rooted in God and the wind comes and the waves rise, we won’t break.
If our roots are deep, we can withstand whatever comes our way.
Maybe you’ve been through hell. Maybe an important relationship didn’t work out the way you planned or words spoken over you caused emotional or spiritual death in you. But because you’re rooted, you’re still standing. You declared, “I may be a little bent, but I’m not broken. I’m not going to let this snap me.” Sometimes we get surprised when we have to bend, when situations don’t turn out the way we planned, but if our roots are deep, we’re going to be able to withstand whatever comes our way.
Flourish in Replanting
Psalm 92:13 says, “They are transplanted to the Lord’s own house.” God replants us because some of us have roots in the soil of wrong relationships. We shouldn’t be in that relationship pot or this particular soil. Some of us have put our roots down in unhealthy mindsets or thought processes for too long. That soil isn’t the right soil for our minds.
God supernaturally takes us from an unhealthy place of planting and plants us in a healthier place so that we can flourish. When a plant is stuffed in a pot that’s not big enough to hold it, its roots hang out everywhere. Some of you feel claustrophobic in your life; you feel trapped and you can’t get out. I believe that God is breaking your pot and is going to plant you in fresh soil.
God’s breaking is exciting, but it’s also going to be messy. It’s not easy and glamorous to go from one pot of soil to another. Dirt gets everywhere. The process is messy, but it’s worth it because our growth can be stunted when we stay in the wrong pot or the wrong soil. You can grow only so far when you’re planted in a pot that’s stifling you. I dare you to get into a bigger pot, then see how you’re able to spread out and how people notice something different about you. You won’t seem the same, because you’re growing in grace and flourishing with confidence.
Crack your pot; then get rid of it.
Flourish in the Desert
Deserts are dry and desperate for water, but palm trees can thrive in deserts, and we can as well. Sometimes we go through desert or wilderness situations, and we think our lives are over. We might think, I’m in the desert. How am I going to grow? How is God going to speak to me or use me? I promise you—you can flourish in the desert seasons of your life.
In the winter, my hands get really dry and crack. I have to use a lot of lotion. I mean a lot. A few years ago, I went to Walgreens one morning and didn’t have time to put on lotion. As I was checking out, the cashier said, “Wow, you look a lot older than your driver’s license says because your hands are so wrinkly.”
Yep, that really happened. People will just say crazy stuff.
