Building a fruitful life

On Jan. 1, many of us hang up new calendars with empty pages offering a fresh start for ordering our lives. But as those pages quickly fill with the myriad tasks and goals we plan to accomplish in 2023, our frenetic lifestyles may begin to feel like a repetitive loop.

In their book The Intentional Year (NavPress, 2022), Holly and Glenn Packiam offer another way to frame the new year. They ­suggest that individuals and couples can escape the merry-go-round pace of life by pausing to reflect and pray before choosing healthy practices to pursue. Living an intentional life, they write, is “about abiding in Jesus—and allowing the Holy Spirit to produce his fruit in you for the sake of others.” This is why, the Packiams say, it is impor­tant to make a distinction between having a productive life and having a fruitful life: “Productivity is about what we’re doing; fruitfulness is about who we’re becoming.”

To pursue fruitfulness, the Packiams recommend taking an annual retreat to inventory the past year. They say that by reflecting on the past and praying for discernment for the future, we can discover lessons that God is teaching us and uncover areas in our lives that need greater cultivation. The Packiams then present five spheres of life (prayer, rest, renewal, relationships, and work) and explain how to integrate healthy, life-giving rhythms that allow individuals or couples to engage intentionally in each sphere.

The Packiams conclude by encouraging readers to aim for something greater than just goals for the new year. They reference an ancient Benedictine practice called the rule of life, which they define as “a call to order our lives so we may love the Lord and ­others well.” This isn’t a rule to intimidate us, they write, but rather “an intentional plan to keep God at the center of everything we do.” And by doing so in the new year, we will reap the blessing that Jesus offered in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”