There were almost blueberries in my backyard this morning.

For weeks now, I’ve watched the pair of bushes we planted years ago. I’ve seen then start to bud, then get a little bigger each day, and now finally the fruit has appeared. And it’s almost ripe. And then will come a couple of weeks of harvesting through the summer in which we will have fresh blueberries every morning.

Thing is, though, I didn’t do a whole lot to make this happen. Several years ago, I bought two little plants, dug two holes, and then waited, only occasionally throwing a little water. Over the course of time, those bushes have grown and now we are reaping the rewards (if the birds don’t get there first).

I think about those bushes in our backyard when I read verses like Galatians 5:22-23:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

There are definitely some points of similarity here. For example, the reason why there are blueberries in my backyard is because that’s the kind of bushes we planted there. It would be unrealistic for me to expect those blueberry bushes to produce oranges because that’s not the kind of plant they are. In other words…

The fruit reveals the root.

The same thing is true for the Christian, and this is one of the reasons why these characteristics are called “fruit” in the first place. It’s because the manifestation of these qualities, in ever-increasing measure, is the result of our “root” being changed. We have been born again in Christ, and with the new heart He has given to us, the fruit that comes from that experience is qualities like those in Galatians 5.

But is that all there is to it? Is it like the bushes in our yard, that all I really have to do is sit back and wait for them to do what they will naturally do? If that were true, then it would mean that the Christian life is passive in nature – that if we do nothing at all, then because we have been changed by Jesus, we will naturally produce love and joy and peace and the rest of these things.

This is where the backyard analogy breaks down, and the reason why it does is because of all the other environmental factors. For example, the soil where we live is naturally rich. What’s more, we have a fenced in backyard and raised garden beds. In addition to that, we have a dog that loves to chase any kind of critter that might venture close to the plants growing in the corner of our yard.

Taken together, that means our family has a pretty friendly environment for raising blueberries. 

And that’s where things really start to diverge, because the environment for spiritual fruit is anything but accommodating.

Yes, we have been born again, but we still have the inclinations of the flesh inside of us. There are daily temptations from the world and hourly pulls toward fear, anxiety, and despondency. That means the Christian, in order to be a fruit-grower, must be hard at work. But we aren’t working hard to produce the fruit any more than a bush works hard to produce berries. 

We are working to create an environment that is conducive for the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do.

This is what fruit-growing looks like for the Christian – it is the process where, by faith, we create an environment of growth by taking an active role in what comes in our minds, our hearts, and our souls. And in so doing, we trust that the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit in our lives.

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This post originally appeared at thinke.org.