My blog is my fruit

I realized something this weekend. My three-mile run turned into a walk, but I wasn’t discouraged by my lack of endurance, because I was enjoying the sunshine and the Saturday afternoon. And I was thinking about God things. The peace and joy that accompanies a content heart isn’t just nice; it’s what living in God’s will is. It’s abiding.

As I learn what all this abiding business really means, I find my anxiety-prone heart drawn to the idea that a relationship with Christ means I can stop worrying. He commands my trust. When he gives me the gift of faith, I don’t just set it on the shelf for a nice occasion or a rainy day; I use it up hungrily. He promises me things, like green pastures, abundant life and freedom.

My first step to claiming those promises, after believing them — which is more like a split-inducing leap than a step anyway — is to abide. And that’s also my last step. I don’t have to do anything else. I can’t do anything else.

So this blog — as well as the rest of my career, daily tasks, job goals, etc. — is no longer a check box on my list of things to do. It’s fruit. It will naturally come if I’m abiding in God. It will grow and not be a product of my own effort, but of God’s direction and guidance. Or it won’t, and my fruit will be elsewhere. Or it won’t, because I have no fruit and need to run back to God.

This new way of life counters my control-loving, plotting and scheming tendencies. It also rejects the “industry standard” that emphasizes blogging daily, tweeting hourly, writing through writer’s block and forcing myself into a box under the guise of creating a niche.

Submitting to God’s truths means repenting and letting God have control. It’s hard and uncomfortable. The closest I’ve come in the past to considering my work to be fruit is when I kept my crackberry glued to my hip. But those days are over, I’m turning over a new leaf and letting God do the rest. And I now have an iPhone, so that’s gotta help too.