Jesus tells us that our key occupation as Christians is to produce fruit (Jn. 15:5-8). Rachel Jankovic makes the following observations about this concept:

[There] is something I love about fruit-bearing trees and bushes – that God told them to make something and they do it enthusiastically. They don’t care about what happens to the fruit. […] They do not measure their efforts or fuss when no one appreciates it. […] [T]rue fruitfulness requires constant, year-round attention. It requires taking risks. It is funny to think about, but God does not tell us to necessarily be strategic with our fruit. We do not need to know what will happen to the fruit. […] That does not mean that we don’t care about the fruit. While it is on our branches, it is our life work. It is an offering to God, and we ought to care intensely about the quality of our fruit. But the branches are our responsibility, the ground [where the fruit goes] is not.1

As we serve God, we should seek to be productive, offering our efforts up to the One who establishes the work of our hands (Ps. 90:17) as unstintingly as He has offered us His grace. Sure, it’s a good idea to set goals and to try to be strategic about what we do, but we never know if that single puny apple we left with our unsaved mechanic will be more productive than the whole truckload we’ve dumped on our kid. Let’s be faithful in our production and leave the rest to God.

• 1Rachel Jankovic, Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2010), pp. 31-33.