Flourish

By Michael Turner

Isn’t it amazing the things in life we so quickly forget, and the things we will always remember? I can remember, a few years after my parents divorced, going to church for the very first time with my mother. I must have been eight or nine years old at that time. I can remember standing next to her on top of the pew, trying to see over the sea of heads in front of me. After just a few songs of worship, I was instantly hooked. Every chance I could, I would beg my mom to take me to church—Sunday morning worship, Sunday school, back again for Sunday night worship, Wednesday night Bible study.

I just loved it all. Probably because it was the one place for us that felt like home. You see, my mother was raised in extreme poverty in what was one of the poorest areas of Atlanta. She had a father who abused alcohol and, consequently, abused her. He later abandoned her and her five siblings to be raised by a single mom. And when she became a single mom herself, she made a conscious decision that something had to change. By committing herself to God and becoming a champion for the local church, my mother was modeling for me as a young boy that you may not have come from a great family, but a great family could still come from you.

Despite her circumstances and the faulty building blocks she knew she and my father had given me, she was determined for me to know early on that I was made for more.

In Genesis 1, we read of a God who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. From the fish and the birds to the plants and trees, God uniquely designed and created each thing with the potential to contain and produce new life from within themselves. In the heavens, the stars were contained. In the soil, the plants were contained. And in the water, fish were contained. Everything that God created in Genesis 1 was given the ability to reproduce after itself. And the same is true for you and me.

When God created Adam, He did so after His likeness and placed within him the ability to contain and produce life. Eve was created from Adam, and both were given a unique calling by God to do something important with the seeds of greatness He had placed inside of them. And what exactly was this calling, you ask? It’s the same calling that He has given you and me today to chase after.

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

In the Genesis 1:28, just before He planned to rest from all of His work, God tells Adam (and Eve) to be “fruitful and multiply.” Now, when I first became a Christian, I immediately thought that God was just telling them to go and make lots of babies, but that’s not what He was talking about. What God was commanding Adam and Eve was to take dominion over everything He created and expand it throughout the earth for His glory. At the very beginning of time, God’s sole desire was to create a family that would be marked by His name and resemblance—one that could build and receive generational blessings.

Perhaps that’s why Satan, our enemy and foe, decided to appear to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 and convince them to reject and rebel against God. Showing up to them as the snake he really is, he knew then, just as he does today, that if you and I ever fully understood God’s purpose for us to be fruitful and multiply, there would be nothing he could do to stop us. Knowing that we can be, do and have whatever God has purposed for us drives him crazy. In fact, Satan’s sole desire since God cast him out of heaven has been to bring chaos to our world, fragment it and separate God’s people from Him, whereas God’s sole desire is to redeem mankind and empower them for eternal greatness.

Repeat these words after me: Be fruitful and multiply.

I’ve always found it interesting that, when God created Adam and Eve and gave them this incredible call and purpose, He did so in the midst of a garden. Now, while I’ve never been much for gardening—I’ve probably killed far more plants than I care to admit—I do know that for any garden to be fruitful and produce well, it requires several things. It needs good soil, as well as an adequate supply of water and sunlight.

But no matter how good the soil is, and no matter the amount of water and sun, in order for a garden to be fruitful, it requires plowing. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had to plow through the ground, pull weeds or remove any debris or pests that are known to choke out the seeds you’re wanting to plant, but trust me when I tell you it takes a lot of hard work.

The truth is, plowing where we ultimately desire to be fruitful is not an easy thing to do.

One garden that may be the most difficult for us to plow through—that is also often the place we doubt will ever produce fruit—is our minds. I love what Henry Ford, American automotive inventor and founder of one the world’s most renown companies, once said about our minds, and particularly, the way you and I think: “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you are right.”

In Proverbs 23:7, King Solomon, one of the wisest people who ever lived, provided a similar thought nearly 3,000 years before Henry did: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” How you and I think determines how we believe, what we do and what we will have in our lives. As believers, sometimes it’s hard for us to understand that most of the results we are experiencing right now are not a matter of our praying, but rather a matter of our thinking. For us to live the kind of fruitful lives God has planned for us, we have to begin changing the way we think about ourselves, no matter how difficult our past.

The greatest gift we can give to others is a healthy version of ourselves. And we are at our healthiest when we are willing to stretch and grow into the person God is calling us to be. No matter what our lives may look like today, we need to have a growth mindset, be unafraid to begin doing things differently, and refuse to settle for what is easy. It would have been easy for my mother to give up on her future after my father and her divorced. Instead, she refused to take the path of least resistance, finished her college degree, and became a faithful giver to the House of God.

When I found myself lying in an emergency room hospital bed after a three-day drinking and drug binge, the easiest thing for me to do was to give up on myself and end my life. But instead, I began remembering the songs I used to sing while in church, the prayers I used to pray while in church, as well as those that were prayed over me. I remembered hearing messages about a God whose love for me was so great that, even when I probably deserved His judgement, His grace and mercy were still mine for asking. When I came face to face with the God of my youth and acknowledged how I was rebelling against Him and His love for me, He was quick to remind me that I was still His child and my shortcomings would do nothing to change that fact.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that at the age of 52, I would be blessed with the wife and three kids I have today. If you were to tell me that I one day would be pastoring one of the greatest churches in all of South Atlanta, I would have looked at you cross-eyed. God has blown my mind time and time again—not because of me, but because of what He wanted to do through me.

What thoughts are you wrestling with today about yourself? What is it about your past that is causing you to think that you’ll never be fruitful, or that you weren’t made for more than what you see today? Friends, you may not believe this, but there is legacy inside of you. And no, that was not a typo.

LEGACY-MINDED

Everything that God desires to do for us is never really about us, but rather about what He desires to do through us. There is a story God is writing about you that is bigger than you. It is important to know once and for all that God never placed you on this earth to be good, but to do good. You were not just saved from something, but you were saved to do something. As Christians, it is so easy for us to mirror so many of the world’s values today concerning our lives and our purposes. We have all been guilty, one time or another, of being more focused on a hobby, purchasing a car or building a career than we were on expanding God’s kingdom and leaving a legacy that would make Him smile.

Everywhere you look today, whether you are scrolling through your phone or via your remote, it seems like everyone has become best friends with what I like to call the Me Monster. Perhaps more frightening than any Halloween movie you’ve seen, this monster literally feeds on our selfish nature. It is driven by the lust of our flesh and how consumed we all can become with wanting the world to know who we are instead of whose we are. Nothing points this out more clearly than 1 John 2:16: “For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from the world.”

As children of God, we are called to be fruitful and multiply. We have to become legacy-minded when it comes to the things we say and do and the places we choose to go to spend our time. That word “legacy” literally means to be able to pass something of worth down to someone else. Just as land and riches can be passed down from one generation to the next, the same is true with the values we uphold as believers. What we believe matters. And what we put into practice matters even more.

As a first generation pastor, knowing that I may not have been on the receiving end of a great legacy but that I was responsible for leaving one for my kids has been something that has inspired me more than anything else. From the time our children were able to walk into church, just as I did with my mother when I was their age, Charla and I were determined that they would serve in some capacity, great or small. From singing on stage to giving food to those in need, each of our kids has learned early on that their lives are not their own, but that they were placed on this earth to be a blessing to others. Every Sunday, when I see them serving and giving in our church, I am reminded that legacy is really not about what you build, but who you are raising up.

Each of us has been given a legacy to live and a legacy to leave behind, and it begins by embracing the belief that we were made for more. God has never changed His mind concerning His children and their purpose. What He asks Adam and Eve to do in the garden He is still asking you and I to do today. The time has come for us to be fruitful and multiply—to subdue the earth with His glory for the renown of His name. If I’m coming off like a broken record (be fruitful and multiply...you were made for more...it’s time to leave a legacy), I make no apologies. Perhaps it’s because our Heavenly Father has been doing the same thing far longer than I have:

“...He is the faithful God who keeps His covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes His unfailing love on those who love Him and obey His commands” (Deuteronomy 7:9).

To know that our God wants to lavish you and I with His love ought to excite you! I’ve been reading that passage of Scripture for over 20 years, and I still get excited about it! And to know that the love of God is unfailing, even when I have failed Him time and time again, is just something I will never understand.