Flourish: Living a Fruitful LifeSample

DAY 4 / The Seed – Flourishing Through Intentionality

What picture comes into your mind when you hear the word “flourish”? Maybe you imagine lush grass and a garden full of colourful flowers. Or maybe the idea of flourishing brings to mind healthy relationships, a thriving career with opportunities galore, and financial wealth.

Regardless of how we define this goal, we will only ever flourish when we pursue it with intentionality. If you want to grow strawberries, you plant strawberry seeds. This seems obvious. Yet for some reason, many of us unintentionally spend our days planting seeds that are not in line with the flourishing lives we hope to cultivate. Aimlessness will never lead to purpose and meaning. If we want to overflow with more love and joy, then we can’t allow our minds and hearts (and social media feeds!) to continually focus on our frustrations and dislikes.

When Paul wrote in Romans 10:9 NIV, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”, he wasn’t saying that Jesus is Lord is the secret password at the gates of heaven that will save us from eternal damnation in some later reality. Paul was letting the Romans in on a new way of framing their lives that would save them from the hopelessness and oppression that our broken world continually subjects us to. When we affirm with our mouths is that Jesus is Lord (He is the authority in our lives, our first priority!), and when our hearts are full of faith in a God who brings the dead to life and can do all things, the natural fruit of this will be lives that overflow with hope and freedom - bringing His Kingdom into our world here and now.

Similarly, when Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 NLT, “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need”, He’s not inviting us to make a transaction with God - you give me that and I’ll give you this. Jesus is actually explaining that when our greatest desire is to know and reflect Him in all that we do, we will plant seeds of the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). In turn, not only will our earthly survival needs be met, but these seeds will produce a way of living that allows us to thrive and flourish.

Reflection:

Will the seeds that you are planting today grow into the fruit that you want to harvest tomorrow?