5. Don't Be a Zero

I want to talk today about the nature of being fruitful and multiplying. True fruitfulness comes in all kinds of guises, but what I am talking about is just the natural outcome of faithful living. Faithfulness and fruitfulness are very closely related. 

Now, something that is very important to keep in mind any time we are talking about this kind of work is this fundamental truth that is baked into reality:

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 1 Cor. 3:5–7

We do the work—we really do. We plant, and we water, and we do so in faith that God will accomplish something far more than what we are doing with what we are doing. We tend the seeds and we fuss around with watering cans, but in the end, if our work and our faithfulness bears fruit, it is entirely in the Lord’s hands. He sends the increase.

Now the reason I bring this up is because when God multiplies your work, when He scales up the fruit of what you have been doing—it is then that there will be opportunities for you to feel somewhat diminished.

The reality is that when you enter into the most abundant phases of your life, you are not going to be feeling like your most abundant self. When God blesses your work by multiplying it, you are not going to feel like you are sitting on a nest of abundance—rather, you are going to see abundance happening out there, without you.

Now this can happen in all phases of life and with all kinds of situations. Let's say that you really threw yourself into getting some ministry started, or teaching a group of girls how to sew, or really anything that required a lot of your faithful work that somehow tipped over into not needing you anymore. That is the feeling of multiplication. A four can feel downright shabby when standing next to a sixteen. A four might even be tempted to feel a little sorry for itself. 

But here is the thing that is so wonderful: we were never the point. Our faithful work was never about our hands. We plant and we water with the full understanding that this is all about God, who will give the increase. So, when we face one of these moments where we feel somewhat diminished—like the work we were doing is no longer needed or we have been outgrown—this is a moment for praise. I may have planted and I may have watered but look at what God has done! He and He alone has given the increase.

Listen. I know that it can feel hard in these moments where your child is off without you at school, or your grown child is undertaking their own work and isn’t waiting for your insights. I know firsthand that it is wild to see things that took a lot of effort for you come naturally, effortlessly even to your daughters. But these are the moments when we ought to feel the most delighted in our work. Not because it reflects well on us, but because they are opportunities to see that however fruitful you are, it is only God who multiplies that. When these sorts of things do not immediately hit us as wonderful, we have revealed a little crookedness in our heart. We need to be oriented to the glory of God—not our feelings, and certainly not our own glory. If you can see something you have done that the Lord is prospering, and you want to get credit for it, you are doing it wrong. 

There is tremendous freedom in this. We should be pouring ourselves out and we should be delighted to see what the Lord does with our efforts. There is something very important here though. When the Lord is prospering your work and you are somehow feeling diminished in that, thank Him. Orient yourself to His glory. This is a time to guard your heart and spirit closely. You have an opportunity here to become a spiritual zero. And when the Lord is multiplying your work before your very eyes, do not become a zero in the equation. Instead, rejoice in His work. Rejoice in the goodness of His abundance. Look for ways to give more freely in imitation of Him. But do not become the zero! 

Heavenly Father, we come before You this week, delighted to be working Your fields with Your seeds and Your water. We ask, Lord, that You would give us hearts that instinctively delight in the abundance that comes only from You, and that we would not be tuned to our own importance. Make us women who delight in the growth that You alone can give, and through that delight, bring glory to Your name.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Rachel Jankovic