Not Much of a Farmer

I grew up in a rural Iowa town. My friends lived on farms. Every fourth grade class participated in an ‘ag-citing’ day each year. I spent a summer walking corn fields roguing and de-tasseling. I currently work for a crop insurance company. I’m no expert on farming, but I know enough to know what farms are all about. The goal of farming is to produce crops. No surprise there. You don’t have to stand in a cornfield to know that.

The thing is- I’m not a farmer. I don’t need to know how to make barley grow or the best way to plant sugarbeets to produce a high yield. But, I am supposed to plant a metaphorical seed. I am supposed to produce a different type of yield.

I was recently reminded that God calls us to ‘bear fruit.’ Scripture says that evidence of our faith is the fruit we produce. We are to plant seeds of truth in non-believers that the Holy Spirit can nurture and bring to harvest. I’ve heard this analogy many times, but as I thought about it I realized- I don’t think I have any fruit. I’m pretty sure my spiritual pantry is empty. Why is that? I could maybe rationalize it that I’ve planted seeds where I just didn’t get to see the impact or results, but if I’m really doing what I’m supposed to be doing, wouldn’t I see at least ONE tiny grape or apple slice?

I wonder what ‘bearing fruit’ really means. Is it only the bringing of people to Christ? Are Christians the only fruit out there? Can’t I just be nice to people? Can’t I just offer words of truth here and there without pushing the envelope? I don’t feel like the environment of my life is conducive to bearing fruit. I feel like a child burying a sunflower seed in a dixie cup and drowning it with water, waiting expectantly for the stem with the floppy yellow hat to emerge from yesterday’s mud.

Some might say my life is a bubble. But aren’t most people’s? Everyone has their life bubble of school or work, friends and family, all in their respective compartments. It’s not just fruitless Christians. And if I live outside my bubble I would be completely drained of things that matter most to me. So how do I balance my values, support- home- with a constant farming endeavor? Would that even be effective?

Francis Chan challenges in his book, ‘Forgotten God,' “How would you be missed if you left [the place you’re in now]? What would change?” He ventures that one of the main reasons we can make an impact through the Holy Spirit is by love. I guess then, love bears fruit. He says,

“We are most alive when we are loving and actively giving of ourselves because we were made to do these things. It is when we live like this that the Spirit of God moves and acts in and through us in ways that on our own we are not capable of.”

Earlier I wrote a blog entry exploring the famous love chapter (1 Corinthians 13) and it wasn’t too hard to imagine what the opposite of love looks like. I just thought about things I’ve done or said in the past. Done and done. Yet, an active description of love eludes me. Our culture begs for a picture of love that I’m not convinced is accurate. (More on that another time). Furthermore, I am still struggling to define and visualize what love should look like in the fields of my life. How can I irrigate the seeds that I plant with love? And will this really produce fruit? God calls me to get behind the wheel of a planter but right now I'm not feeling like much of a farmer.