When we think of fruitfulness, we do not think about failure. When Dr. Siang Yang taught during his training last Saturday, he highlighted the three main ways to be fruitful. To be fruitful there must be evidence of the fruit of the Spirit (agape, God-centered love); which is focused on being more like Christ, the salvation of souls, and social action and justice that is not selfish or self-centered. He also mentioned that the manifestation of fruitfulness doesn’t necessarily mean excellence or success. Fruitfulness can sometimes look like failure!
Job lost everything he owned and loved and he lost his health and his comfort. His friends thought he had sinned against God and had angered Him. His faith was tested, but he stayed faithful to God and emerged from the darkest time in his life with a strengthened and renewed faith.
Jonah ran away from God and ended up in the belly of a whale. In those moments, Jonah probably thought his life was over. But though Jonah had to be thrown into a stormy sea, if he had not gotten that far the sailors of the boat would have never experienced God’s power first-hand and believed in God. God was able to use Jonah’s disobedience to redirect Jonah back and to lead those sailors to salvation.
While we should not glorify suffering or seek out failure, we should know that God can use anything for His glory. Though you might not directly see fruitfulness in your life, and might even see failures, God can use it and work through it for good.