What Is Your Life Producing?

What Is Your Life Producing?

Most of us have ways of measuring progress.

We measure our careers by accomplishments. We measure our finances by what we’ve saved. We measure our health by numbers on a scale, lab results, or how we feel.

But how do we measure spiritual growth?

It’s easy to look at how often we attend church, how much Scripture we know, or how involved we are in our faith. Those things certainly matter. But the Bible gives us another way to look at spiritual growth—by examining what our lives are producing.

In Galatians 5:22–23, Paul writes:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

That’s quite a list.

And maybe every once in a while, it’s worth slowing down long enough to ask ourselves:

Is this what my life is producing?

Am I becoming more loving?

Am I learning to experience joy even when everything doesn’t go my way?

Am I becoming more peaceful instead of allowing every problem to consume me?

Am I more patient with people than I used to be?

Are kindness and goodness becoming natural parts of the way I treat others?

Am I faithful to the people and commitments God has placed in my life?

Are my words becoming gentler?

Can I control my reactions when I’m frustrated, angry, or disappointed?

Those questions can tell us a lot about where we are spiritually.

Fruit Grows From the Inside Out

There is something interesting about Paul’s choice of the word fruit.

Fruit isn’t attached to a tree from the outside. It grows because something healthy is happening within the tree.

The same is true in our lives.

We can force ourselves to act patient for a few minutes. We can remind ourselves to say something kind. We can bite our tongue when we’d rather say exactly what we’re thinking.

Sometimes that’s necessary.

But the deeper work of faith is not simply learning to behave better. It’s allowing God to change what’s happening inside us so that different behavior begins to flow naturally from who we’re becoming.

Jesus spoke about this when He said, “A good tree bears good fruit.”

The condition of the tree eventually becomes visible through what it produces.

So does the condition of our hearts.

The People Closest to Us Often See the Fruit First

There is another uncomfortable but important way to measure our spiritual growth.

Ask how the people closest to us experience us.

It’s relatively easy to be kind to someone we meet for five minutes. It’s harder to remain patient with someone we live with every day.

It’s easy to appear peaceful when everything is going well. It’s harder when plans fall apart.

It’s easy to talk about gentleness. It’s harder to practice it during a disagreement.

Our families, friends, coworkers, and neighbors often see our spiritual growth in ways we don’t.

They experience our patience.

They hear our words.

They see how we respond when we’re disappointed.

They know whether we forgive.

They experience our kindness.

That doesn’t mean Christians will always get these things right. We won’t. Spiritual growth isn’t about becoming perfect.

It’s about becoming different.

Little by little, our reactions begin to change. We become slower to anger and quicker to forgive. We become less concerned about proving ourselves and more willing to listen. We begin noticing opportunities to encourage someone instead of simply moving through our day focused on ourselves.

That’s fruit.

A Different Measure of Success

Maybe we sometimes make faith more complicated than it needs to be.

We can learn theology, study Scripture, attend church, and talk about what we believe. All of those things can strengthen our faith.

But eventually, what we believe should influence how we live.

Perhaps one of the simplest measures of spiritual maturity is this:

Are the people around us experiencing more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control because we’re there?

That’s a question worth carrying with us.

Because a changed heart should eventually produce a changed life.

And when God’s Spirit is working within us, the evidence often appears in the smallest moments—in a patient response, a gentle word, an act of kindness, a decision to forgive, or the self-control to remain quiet when our first instinct is to strike back.

Those moments may seem small.

But they are often where spiritual growth becomes most visible.

So perhaps today, instead of asking how much we know about our faith, we can ask a simpler question:

What is my life producing?