{ Called not to be busy but fruitful* }

fruitful

1. bearing fruit in abundance

2. producing much fruit; fertile

3. causing growth

4. abundantly productive

5. producing good or helpful results; beneficial, profitable

synonyms: fruit bearing, constructive, useful, of use, worthwhile, helpful, of help, of assistance, valuable, rewarding, profitable, advantageous, gainful, successful, effective, effectual, well spent

Measure fruitfulness, not busyness

This one’s huge. Some of you say, "I’m busy! I’m active! I’m so busy, I’m committed to everything." But are you fruitful? 

There’s a big difference between busyness and fruitfulness. Some people, they are filled with coffee. They’re returning e-mails, talking on the phone, texting while they’re driving, doing their make-up and their hair while doing Pilates on their way to work. I mean, they’re multi-taskers, they’re busy, they’re active, they’re rushed. They’re always late, they’re not emotionally present when they’re there with you. They’re taking calls over dinner, I mean they—stuff’s falling through the cracks. They’re not sleeping enough, they’re stressed out and shaking. "I’m so busy!" And what they want is compassion; what they need is fruitfulness. Some of you need to learn to say, "I can’t do that, I can’t do that, I can’t do that. I need to see three things through to completion rather than seven things through to incompletion. I need to be fruitful, not just busy."

I’ll give you an illustration from a cage fight. Back in the old pride fighting days, which cage fighting was in Japan. It was a big deal. And they had the most magnificent epic entrances for the fighters. The fireworks would go off and this huge screen would go up and the fighters would come down this walkway toward the cage and they’d have a whole posse and hip-hop dancers and music and costumes and it was awesome. 

I remember this one fight, this guy’s coming down the ramp and he is busy. He's dancing. He’s screaming. He’s banging his chest. He’s very active. I mean, this guy’s just shaking. He gets in the cage, he’s running laps in the cage. 

And then his opponent comes out and it looks like somebody woke this guy up from a nap and he needed a cup of coffee and he didn’t even want to be there. He just walked, no fly girls, no posse. Nothing with rims, nothing. Just him walking down this ramp toward the ring. 

And he gets into the ring and he sort of meanders to the middle and the other guy’s running around the ring, "Argh!" And then they finally come together and the one guy’s shaking and looking him in the eye and talking trash. And the one guy who’s kind of asleep, he’s like, "Mm-hmm, whatever." 

And then they come out, they touch gloves, and this one guy dances and he’s screaming and he’s, "Argh!" yelling. And the other guy punches him and knocks him out. 

I remember watching the fight thinking, "I want to be that guy. I want to be that guy." Because the one guy, if his family asked him, "How’d it go?" "I was really busy today." The other guy would be like, "I threw a punch and then I went home. And I knocked the other guy out." 

And the truth is, so many of you keep getting knocked out—you’re not focused. You’re not present. You don’t have a plan. You don’t have a budget. You don’t have a schedule. You don’t have priorities. You’re just busy. Busyness and fruitfulness are two different things. 

Some of the most fruitful people I know are also some of the most present, focused, relaxed people I know. They don’t waste their energy on things that they shouldn’t waste their energy on. They focus it. 

"Need to love Jesus, need to love my spouse, need to love my kids, need to help the poor, need to serve those in need. Going to do that and not going to waste all my time and energy on everything else." 

Don’t exchange busyness for fruitfulness. 

[Source: marshill]