Last January, a friend of mine had determined it was going to be the best year ever. Not too long after, her family was hit with devastating news that made the best year ever seem doubtful even for a very distant someday.

How often do we think that a lack of favourable circumstances in our lives makes flourishing impossible?

Flourishing sounds nice— growing or developing in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favourable environment. But for those who live in the real world, with real struggles, facing real blindsides, trying relational issues and personal weaknesses, that necessary favourable environment may feel out of reach.

But is it true?  Do we need favourable circumstances to have a favourable environment for flourishing?

The 12th year of our marriage was probably one of the fullest. And for numerous reasons, probably one of the most challenging.

When you’re at the 10+ year mark, you’re past the majority of new stuff that is naturally accompanied by excitement. New houses, cars, babies, jobs, moves and other new things typically characterize the first 10 years of marriage, but after you hit this strange season of what can feel a lot like maintenance. Work can get stressful. Parenting seems to get more challenging. Life seems to get more expensive. It can feel like there’s a lot to maintain and maintenance isn’t typically something that stirs up a great deal of excitement.

When things get challenging, it’s easy to forget what’s important for the sake of wanting things to change. But something has become increasingly clear to me over this past year.

At the end of the game, only one thing matters.

In my aunt’s yard in beautiful British Columbia is a tree I take great delight in. It produces many pounds of cherries each year and, thankfully, we are among those who get to enjoy them.

I remember the year my aunt called to tell me there had been an abundance of spring sunshine and the cherries appeared to be a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. We circled the weekend on our calendar, counted down the days, packed up the van, and headed west prepared to pick the cherries that were supposedly days away from perfection.

However, there was an unexpected change in the weather, which meant that though the cherries were plenty in number, they weren’t ripe or ready for picking. The empty-handed drive home was disappointing.

While Matthew and Mark describe the seed sown in the thorny soil as unfruitful, Luke rounds out our understanding by describing it as producing no mature fruit.

Here we are, less than a week away from Christmas, and I can’t help but ask, have I made room for the real Christmas? Life only seems be fuller every year. Every year I vow that next year will be different— the shopping will be done before December, the decorations will be hung and the busy work will be behind me so I can have room to fully embrace the season.

But then I wake up, and I’m still me, still not 30 days ahead of the curve.

The fruit of the Spirit gets a lot of press. And it should. According to Jesus, prolific fruit is proof we belong to Him. The presence of the fruit means connection to the presence of God.

For these reasons, fruit should be celebrated. But we cannot forget this simple truth: Fruit isn’t just for celebration; it’s also for reproduction. I wonder if Jesus’ statement that prolific fruit is the measure of a disciple and His command to make disciples is the spiritual version of the physical command given to Adam and Eve—be fruitful and multiply. While fruit is delicious and enjoyable, it also contains seed. And seed sown in good soil can produce more fruit.

The fruit of the Spirit manifested in and through your life could be the seed God uses to plant His love in someone else’s heart.

My first coffee-making contraption was a combination coffee/espresso maker. It was great until the best of both worlds turned out to be too large for my small kitchen. I opted for a simple 12-cup drip pot that satisfied my caffeine cravings in half the counter space. But then the Keurig appeared on the scene. Why brew a whole pot and reheat old coffee when you could have a single cup, hot and fresh, on demand?

I embraced my very own miniature Tim Hortons drive-through until the pods seemed wasteful, overpriced and, now that you mention it, watered down. The Keurig was out and the Aeropress was in. It alone would satisfy the void weak and wasteful coffee had left in my soul, until I was making coffee for a crowd. The Aeropress process felt unnecessarily long and drawn out, so naturally, I needed a French press.

Each contraption left me unsatisfied, worried that there was a better cup of coffee somewhere out there, and I was missing out on it.

One of the primary ways we are distracted from trusting God is worry. Jesus said the worries of this world—the cares and anxieties that distract us and draw us around in many different directions—suffocate seeds of truth in our hearts.