Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to find out if it had any fruit. When He reached it, He found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Mark 11:13
“Jesus finds only leaves… Having an interior life means living with God’s vision, seeing our apostolic task from His viewpoint. Apostolic fruit cannot be lasting when a Christian falls prey to activism, which is the tendency to be ‘doing things’, to rush around, without the support of a deep prayer life. In the end, the furious activity turns out to be sterile and ineffective, and is often the sign of a lack of rectitude of intention.
It is purely human activity without any supernatural perspective. It is perhaps the consequence of ambition, of a desire to attract attention, which can infect everything we do, even the most sublime of undertakings. So there is good reason for stressing the danger of activism – of multiplying deeds which, though good in themselves, have no interior life to support them. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and many authors after him, called such works accursed occupations.
Francis Fernandez in In Conversation with God: Meditations for Each Day of the Year, volume 3 (London: Scepter, 1990) 463.
This year the garden at my home produced an abundance of cucumbers. There were lots of leaves and a load of cucumbers, so Jenni and I had enjoyed and shared many cucumbers and had fun learning to make pickles.
It has been quite a joy for us to find much fruit on those cucumber vines.
But the pumpkins have been another story. The vines have taken over the garden side of our house, but like the fig tree, when we have searched for pumpkins, like Jesus when He looked for figs, largely speaking, we found only leaves.
The vines look great with big green leaves, but we found little fruit.
I guess the pumpkin plant needed pollination for the flowers to make pumpkins. That pollination reminds me of the interior life that needs to be cultivated, the soul that must be fed, before fruit will blossom.
To avoid the danger of activism (doing things for God), abide in Christ and you will bear much fruit.
Ponder this. Are you doing yourself to death? Or is God producing 30-, 60-, or even 100-fold fruit in your life in a way that brings Him glory. Only you can answer this.
Avoid the danger of activism which links to doing things for God.
Jesus neither wants nor needs our help, and yet, He really wants to produce a bumper crop in and through us. He wants to see more than leaves but to do this we must abide in the vine.