January 13: Bear Fruit with Patient Endurance
As for the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance. St Luke
Gregg’s Reflection
One of the most valuable lessons my father taught me was perseverance. In my early years in sales, I learned to hear a hundred “no’s” before getting to a “yes,” to keep showing up, and to keep moving forward even when the outcome wasn’t immediate. Later, running the family business through recessions felt like flying a plane toward a mountain ridge, trying to gain just enough lift to clear it.
Hiking the Fourteeners in Colorado reinforced the same truth: “Slow, but relentless.” Spiritual fruit doesn’t come overnight—it grows slowly, often in hidden places, through steady faithfulness.
Henri Nouwen reminds us that fruitfulness is not the same as success. Fruitfulness often springs from our weakness, our vulnerability, and even our brokenness—like hard ground that must be broken open to yield a harvest. The invitation is to endure patiently, trusting that God is at work beneath the surface, even when we can’t yet see the results.
Scripture
As for the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.
Luke 8:15
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
Hebrews 6:7
Ancient Quotes
The outward work can never be great or good if the inward is small or of little worth. The inward work always includes in itself all size, all breadth, and all length.
Meister Eckhart
Modern Quotes
Our fruitfulness comes out of our vulnerability and not just out of our power. Actually it comes out of our powerlessness. If the ground wants to be fruitful, you have to break it open a little bit. The hard ground cannot bear fruit; it has to be raked open. And the mystery is that our illness and our weakness and our many ways of dying are often the ways that we get in touch with our vulnerabilities.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotional, 8/7/21
Journaling Prompts
- Where in your life do you need patient endurance?
- How do you typically respond when fruit seems slow to appear?
- What helps you stay faithful in the waiting?
- How do you persevere during the dark times, in the valley, not sure you will ever reach the place you aspire to be?
👉 Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 2 reflection: Bearing Fruit/Gifts of the Spirit