I ran across the following quote of Henri Nouwen on Len Hjalmarson's NextReformation website.

" There is a great difference between successful and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another's wounds. Let's remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness."

Nouwen exposes the sharp contrast between success and fruitfulness. The dichotomy of success and fruitfulness lies in the fact that they are from different realms: the world and the kingdom of God. And yet, far too many Christians are being duped by the self-help gurus to buy into the whole success syndrome. Not once is success mentioned in the New Testament, but hear the words of Jesus in John 15:8: "By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples."

Success is by far more attractive and glamorous, as are all of the world's enticements. But fruitfulness, as Nouwen so clearly illustrates, comes out of such undesirable traits as weakness and vulnerability. Yet these are the qualities of the good soil that yields fruit, some thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold.