Years ago, I completed a StrengthsFinder assessment as part of a staff team training we were having. I have to say I had admired the StrengthsFinder approach from afar and was excited to see what strengths came up for me. It’s a fairly comprehensive test and so it took me longer than I had planned but once I’d answered all the questions and submitted the form, I was presented with my ‘5 top strengths’. I’ll not recount them all here, but I want to highlight two of them which relate to this post.

The test listed achiever and competition as two of my strengths. These two strengths are defined as such; an achiever is ‘one with a constant drive for accomplishing tasks’ and someone with competition is ‘one who thrives on comparison and competition to be successful.’ I’ve always understood how these two strengths could be of great use in the business, sporting or financial world but I personally had a problem with them.

I followed Jesus……and I worked for the church! The same Jesus, and His church, who calls us to lay our lives down, warns us not to vie for position, and calls us to a life of service.

My two ‘strengths’ didn’t seem to fit with that teaching! I realise that Strength finders isn’t a Christian based test and I wouldn’t define myself by the results of an online exercise but I was puzzled. I knew many believers who had sat the test and found it helpful to them.

What was I meant to do with my ‘strengths?’

It’s worth mentioning that I believed what the test highlighted was true of me. It’s not like it had worked out my strengths incorrectly. I loved to achieve and get things done, I loved to keep improving and squeeze the best out of something, and I was competitive. I looked around and compared a lot, and I much preferred winning than losing. I wrote that in the past tense and so you might be thinking “he must have turned it all around” ……..but the reality is they are still traits I have today!

The main difference is today I truly celebrate these as strengths and I understand them in the context of the Kingdom.

It’s taken me a while though.

I’ll not bore you with the details of my personal journey but I wish to use these examples to talk about a tension I have discovered, one that the Scriptures have had me explore again.

The tension between being driven and being fruitful

I’m not going to spend too long talking about how the Kingdom of God has no time for striving and ambition. I’ve already mentioned in passing some of Jesus’ teaching in this area. In our modern day understanding of the word, He was the least ‘driven’ leader that has ever lived. He didn’t politic, didn’t try to win popularity contests, and He didn’t spend His time with people of influence. He pushed against the conventional ways to ‘get things done’ and warned His followers not to lord it over others with a view to being the ‘greatest.’ Those of us who follow Him therefore have sought to do the same. We try not to strive and we don’t have ambition for anything but a relationship with Jesus.

However, there is another part to the Kingdom of God that Jesus refers to a lot which I think we have sometimes rejected in our pursuit to not drive or strive.

Today in my readings I came across the moment where Jesus has entered Jerusalem towards the end of His time on earth. He’s just entered the temple and driven out the money changers and traders. He’s created quite the scene and the religious leaders are questioning Him. After sharing some parables with them and delivering some home truths He finishes with this statement.

Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Matthew 21:43

The word I’ve underlined here is the idea that I want us to discuss today. The word Jesus used here means ‘to do, make, practice, produce, a generic term of action or performance.’ It’s not the only time in the gospels that Jesus talks about this kind of thing.

In the book of Luke He tells a parable about an unproductive fig tree which was due to be cut down as it didn’t produce any fruit. He himself curses a fig tree for the crime of unfruitfulness. In John 15:8 when He is talking to His disciples about being the vine He reminds them that they are to produce much fruit which would be a sign that they were His disciples. The parable of the talents in the book of Matthew and the minas in Luke condemns the servant who did not produce a return on what they had been given and of course in the parable of the sower we hear that the sign of someone who is ‘good soil’ was the fact that they produced 30, 60, 100 times what was sown. Top that all off with the great commission in Matthew 28 where the first word is……Go.

Jesus is of course building this all on top of God’s original instruction to humankind in the Green of Eden.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28 (NIV)

God’s intention was that we would be productive, or to use the correct biblical term, fruitful. The term communicates a sense of increase or flourishing. Paul also talks about the kind of fruit that we should produce – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

I think how Paul describes this in the book of Galatians is a real key for us here. Paul echoes God the Father and God the Son, when he instructs us to be fruitful. But he also echoes God the Father and God the Son’s instruction not to jostle, vie, and serve others, when he tells us the kind of fruit that should be produced. He doesn’t seem to think that the two things are opposite. Paul isn’t saying that we should be half driven and half kind, he’s saying that being fully fruitful will make us fully productive and fully kind.

Being ‘driven’ in the modern sense of the word centres our motivation on us, and the outcome we can achieve. We drive in our lives in order to achieve a reward; increased sales, increased fitness, a promotion etc. We are driven to be the best, to achieve the most.

Being ‘fruitful’ centres our motivation on Jesus and the fruit He can produce in us. Our goal shifts from increased sales to increased love, from increased fitness to increased kindness, a promotion in work to a promotion of patience in our lives. We might also get the highest sales in our company, be fitter, and get a promotion. In fact a person seeking to give God their best may be more likely to see all of these things but they are secondary in the order of fruitfulness. The reality is when I am more loving, kinder, more patient etc. I am more likely to be a better employee, boss, athlete etc.

The reality is that while Jesus doesn’t want us to strive, spin, politic and preform our way to the top of the Kingdom, He also doesn’t expect us to be unfruitful, lazy, and passive with what we have been given by God.

We should be driven to be fruitful!