Who I am

Matters more than what I do.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

I didn’t make this up. I read it in a book entitled, The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero. But I’m sure it wasn’t original with him either. It has a universal truth quality written all over it.

Who I am matters more than what I do.

Don’t misunderstand either of us, however. What we do is important, but where it comes from is more so to ourselves as human beings.

Let me put it like this. If I do something to bless others, they will probably be blessed. If it comes out of some part of me that is seeking something completely selfish, like wanting wealth or fame, then it can be corrosive to my own soul. Who knows, I might do something incredible that makes me famous and from the perspective of anyone viewing from the outside it could appear that I have been richly blessed. On the inside it could be affecting me in really dark and difficult ways. This is a very old story line, one continually played out in the pages of every tabloid ever penned about all those paparazzied celebrities.

“She/He had it all and then carelessly threw it away. What a waste.”

It almost writes itself, it is so common.

Which brings me back again to my initial statement, Who I am is more important compared to what I do. It’s the idea that sound healthy fruit trees produce the best fruit.

Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Matthew 7:16-18 (ESV)

And Jesus wasn’t really talking about trees.

Have you ever walked through an orchard and become distracted by all the grunting, groaning, and moaning coming from the trees as the produce fruit?

Neither have I.

The reason is it doesn’t take effort on the part of fruit trees to produce fruit. It’s just what they do when given enough sunlight, good soil with necessary nutrients, and water and time, lots of time. Fruit bearing doesn’t happen over night.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV)