Responsibility—and a Rule of Life

Don’t miss Thursday’s conversation with Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth

Last Wednesday, I gathered a group of writers at a Grand Rapids restaurant on the eve of the Festival of Faith and Writing. We were there to discuss a rule of life practice as related to creative work and vocation. I opened the evening with a quote from Andi Ashworth, from the recently released book she co-authored with her husband, Charlie Peacock. “The writer herself is the only one who can lay claim to the quiet practices that make for a writing life.”

“What are the habits and practices to support your God-given desire to write?” I asked. I realized later it is inadvisable to ask people to discuss big ideas when they are forking salad into their mouths.

The question—of intentional habits and practices—forces the question about responsibility. Responsibility is central to a rule of life practice, I told the group. It’s not responsibility in the form of self-effort or self-reliance. It’s not responsibility that becomes self-righteous pride. Rather, it’s responsibility that develops in response to God’s voice. It’s responsibility that takes seriously that the gospel is both gift and call, that holiness is both being and doing. No love for Christ can be expressed outside of obedience to Christ.

Responsibility is a word suggesting agency, freedom, and active effort, these immeasurable and risky endowments we enjoy as creatures made in the image of God. Responsibility suggests choice. And here’s the thing: no one can choose your faithfulness. No one can choose your diligence. No one can choose your constancy and commitment. This will be yours to decide, though there is still so much for which to trust God in the process. We can never choose well apart from the Spirit leading, the Spirit empowering.

Related to the idea of trust, I told this group of writers last week the parable of the fig tree in Luke 13. For three years, this fig tree has not produced a single fig, and the landowner is fed up. He has waited, and watched, and still there has been no fruit. Cut the tree down, he tells the gardener, which seems like a reasonable, rational response. If one tree isn’t bearing fruit, make room for another tree that will.

But the gardener is more patient than the landowner. Let’s give it another year, another chance, the gardener suggests. Let me give it “special attention.” Let me “apply plenty of fertilizer.” The gardener promised to commit all his resources to producing figs, though there would still be no guarantee that the efforts would meet with success.

“If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down.”

As I meditated on that passage a couple of weeks ago, I realized that it was exegetically reasonable to see God as the gardener in this parable. Of course, Jesus doesn’t step in to interpret the parable for his disciples, so I’m quite willing to be wrong. But there are certainly other places in Scripture where God is the gardener. He plants the vine that is Israel (Psalm 80). He tends the branches that grow from the vine of Christ (John 15).

If God is indeed the gardener in the parable of the fig tree, then it seems God’s patience is extraordinary for slow work and unfruitful seasons. If God is the gardener, it seems he can easily forbear, even forgive barrenness where we do not.

God makes things grow when all hope seems lost.

I think this parable is about something much larger than my little life and its small stories of felt hopelessness. Indeed, I think it’s a parable to speak of the good news that Christians proclaim through the story of Jesus. Humanity is a barren fig tree, producing none of the fruit God intended for the creatures he made in his own image. But God is a patient gardener. He doesn’t give them up or cut them down. He begs for more time. He cultivates with even greater diligence. Robert Farrar Capon, in his book on the parables, even goes so far as to say that Christ—the one who suffered outside the camp—is the manure, or fertilizer, applied to the fig tree.

I see the immensity of the good news this parable proclaims—and I also wondered if this wasn’t a word for me, in the discouraging season of my publishing life? (You’ve been around for that conversation here and here.) I can’t know for sure, but it certainly seemed that this Scripture was saying watch and wait and see. Let God do the work only God can do—and please, Jen, do not feel as if you must check back for growth. Entrust the working, the watching, and the waiting to God.

I told this group of gathered writers the story of the fig tree as a way of reminding them that it can matter very much to bring creative desire, and creative angst into the presence of God. In fact, it can matter very much to stay in regular conversation with God about every responsibility we carry, seeking his help for the clarity, courage, consistency, and commitment that seem very necessary for persevering.

I’m excited to talk this further about creative desire, creative angst, and the faithful artful life with Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth this Thursday at 1pm EST (login details below for paid subscribers). If you can’t join live, you can certainly catch up later when I post the recording.