Are You Growing Seasonal Fruit?

The calendar says it’s fall. Here in South Florida, we call this season Summer Junior. Ha!

But seasons are not limited to the calendar. We also experience less predictable seasons of fluctuating joy and sorrow, work and rest, and health and illness. And while seasons come and go, we can often find ourselves stuck. Unable to shift with the change.

Seasonal Discontent

Maybe present uncertainties are causing us to romanticize the past, fondly remembering “the good old days.” Or perhaps letting go of the past is easy because it overflowed with pain. Instead, we’re stuck in the future. Discontented with where we are, we’re laser-focused on the better days to come. I’ll be happy if . . . If God allows this or that. If I find a better job or my children make better choices or I move to a nicer home or my medical tests declare good news.

I’ve experienced both traps: stuck in the emotional past in some seasons, and obsessed with what the future may or may not bring in others. Neither one was healthy for me. The fruit yielded in those seasons was, in some cases, bitterly unripe, and in other cases, ripe, but riddled with worms of anxiety. Inedible emotional and spiritual fruit.

A Different Kind of Seasonal Fruit

One benefit of changing seasons is the variety of fruit we can enjoy. I remember a time when certain kinds of fruit were only available to us in their season. And even if we could access them out of season, the prices would be exorbitant. Today, most fruit is readily available, regardless of their local seasonality. Cherries in January and apples in July. Peaches in March and strawberries in December. Although out-of-season fruit may be pricey, it’s still available.

The Bible has much to say about seasonal fruit . . . and spiritual fruit.

God’s Spirit is at work in His children to grow His fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But even with His work in us, we have seasons when we may struggle. Our spiritual enemy is adept at stirring up circumstances in which our joy dries up, our patience wears thin, and our peace is stripped by anxiety. How do we handle those seasons?

The Power of Abiding

While we cannot create spiritual fruit, we can position ourselves for the Holy Spirit to have His way with us. Only one position can accomplish this: the place of abiding. In John 15:4–5, Jesus told His disciples, “Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

What does abiding in Christ look like in daily life? To abide is to live in, to dwell. To remain connected— permanently. A branch does not alternately attach to and detach from the trunk, back and forth depending on the occasion. It must remain connected for life to flow uninterrupted. Abiding requires total and consistent dependence on the Lord. This process of abiding reflects an ongoing prayer life and an intentional decision to be aware of His presence in and with us throughout our day. Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century French monk, called this “the practice of the presence of God”— a lifestyle, whether deep in prayer or in the kitchen cooking dinner.

Satan does not have the authority to steal what the Holy Spirit has already provided. Still, our spiritual enemy can tempt us to neglect our abiding. Just as a branch broken from the vine no longer receives sustenance to bear fruit, our failure to remain connected separates us from everything we need to mature the Spirit’s fruit in us.

We cannot succeed in growing spiritual fruit by simply trying harder or working smarter. Self-help effort alone will fail. The answer starts with surrender to the Holy Spirit. So the next time you’re feeling as if the growth of your spiritual fruit is stunted, spend time alone with the Lord. Ask Him to show you the areas you’re susceptible to the enemy’s attacks, and how He is calling you to respond. God wants to grow His fruit in you not just in certain seasons, but year-round!

How has the enemy tempted you to doubt God’s Word regarding the fruit of the Spirit in your life?