What You Plant Is What You Lead

Imagine standing in a field at dawn with two seeds in your hand. Both look the same, small and full of potential. One will grow fast, sprouting overnight with little effort, but its fruit will be bitter and hollow. The other takes time. It demands patience, attention, and care. Yet when it ripens, its fruit nourishes everything around it.

That’s the daily decision of every human being, leader, and professional: which seed you’re planting with your thoughts, words, and habits. Galatians 5:24 says, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” That verse isn’t an ancient moral slogan. It’s a blueprint for transformation.

Whether you realize it or not, you’re planting something every day.

The Cross and the Cultivation

Paul’s image of crucifixion wasn’t poetic. It was brutal, deliberate, and final. When he says we “crucify the flesh,” he’s talking about an ongoing process of letting go of the impulses that keep us small. Pride. Jealousy. Control. The endless hunger for validation.

Crucifixion isn’t comfortable, but growth rarely is.

In leadership and business, this shows up when you’re tempted to lead from ego instead of empathy. It surfaces when you chase comparison rather than calling. The “flesh” in Galatians isn’t your body; it’s that inner voice that whispers, “Make it about you. Protect yourself. Take the shortcut.” The Spirit, on the other hand, calls you to something higher: love that doesn’t demand repayment, peace that outlasts chaos, and patience that doesn’t quit when the numbers don’t immediately add up.

One seed grows fast, but leaves you empty. The other grows slowly but builds a legacy.

The Leadership of Surrender

In business, we often celebrate hustle, domination, and speed. But in the kingdom of God, and in sustainable leadership, the real strength is surrender. Surrender isn’t weakness; it’s alignment. It’s saying, “I don’t want my unchecked desires to drive this meeting, this relationship, or this mission.”

Think of a vineyard. The vine doesn’t strain to bear fruit. It abides. It stays connected to the source, and the fruit happens naturally. Leaders who learn this truth stop living reactive lives. They stop letting circumstances, emotions, or outcomes dictate their identity. They start leading from peace instead of pressure.

That kind of leadership is rare, and it’s magnetic. People can sense when your peace isn’t borrowed from results but rooted in something deeper.

What’s Growing Beneath the Surface

You can dress success in all kinds of packaging: metrics, titles, influence. But sooner or later, the fruit tells the truth. The bitterness of burnout, cynicism, and isolation always traces back to the seeds of self that were planted long before.

The same is true for your spiritual life. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, isn’t a checklist. It’s evidence. It reveals what’s being cultivated in the unseen soil of your soul.

So, what’s growing beneath your surface?

Are you producing peace or chaos? Integrity or exhaustion? Humility or self-promotion?

The flesh produces quick wins that rot fast. The Spirit produces fruit that lasts.

The Daily Death That Gives Life

Crucifying the flesh isn’t a one-time event. It’s a rhythm. Every morning, you get the chance to choose what part of you lives and what part of you dies. When your temper flares, when fear whispers, when pride rises, those are the small crucifixions that shape your character.

Death before life. Pruning before fruit.

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about participation. You join Christ in this rhythm of death and resurrection every time you say, “Not my way, but Yours.”

In business, that might look like holding integrity when dishonesty would be easier. In relationships, it might mean apologizing first. In leadership, it might mean choosing to listen before you speak. Every act of surrender becomes a seed that produces something eternal.

Profession Meets Purpose

If you belong to Christ, your work is no longer just about results; it’s about reflection. You reflect the character of the One you follow. The Spirit-filled life reshapes how you show up in boardrooms, client calls, and even conflict.

You don’t just manage teams. You cultivate people.
You don’t just deliver outcomes. You build trust.
You don’t just create systems. You nurture culture.

Professionally, crucifying the flesh looks like letting go of the need to control everything and learning to lead with consistency, compassion, and conviction. Spirit-led leaders produce fruit that transforms not only businesses but also the people inside them.

That’s what the world’s starving for, not more performance, but more fruit.

The Seed and the Soil

Here’s the truth: you can’t fake fruit. It grows from whatever seed you’ve planted and the soil you’ve tended. The soil of your soul, the habits, thoughts, and motives you nurture, determines what your life gives off to others.

If your days are filled with hurry, resentment, or self-importance, you’ll eventually taste that in your results. But if you let the Spirit till your soil through humility, prayer, and honest reflection, you’ll notice something shift. Meetings will feel lighter. Conversations will carry grace. Decisions will reflect wisdom instead of fear.

You’ll start producing the kind of fruit that nourishes others instead of depleting them.

The Reflection That Changes Everything

Today, don’t just ask what you’re achieving. Ask what you’re becoming.

Is the fruit of your leadership bitter or life-giving?
Are your relationships flourishing or fatigued?
Is your work producing peace or anxiety?

The answer to those questions reveals which seed you’ve been watering.

So here’s the invitation: plant something eternal. Let the Holy Spirit show you what needs to die and what deserves to grow. Create the kind of life and leadership that tastes like love, joy, and peace to everyone who encounters it.

Because at the end of the day, people won’t remember your titles or achievements.

They’ll remember your fruit.

A Prayer for the Seeds We Plant

Father, thank You for the reminder that every day, I’m planting something through my thoughts, my words, and the way I lead. Help me to see the soil of my life clearly. Show me where pride, fear, or selfish ambition have taken root, and give me the courage to lay them down at the cross.

Teach me to lead from peace instead of pressure. Help me to walk by Your Spirit in every meeting, every conversation, and every quiet decision no one else sees. When I’m tempted to react, remind me to respond with love. When I’m drawn to control, remind me to surrender.

Let my life, my work, and my leadership bear fruit that nourishes others, fruit that lasts. Shape my success into something sacred, rooted in character, patience, and grace.

And as I move through this day, may Your Spirit whisper truth into the spaces where my ego once spoke loudest.

Amen.

Pause here. Ask yourself, “What seed am I watering today?” Then invite God to tend it with you.

Journal & Reflection

1. What kind of fruit is growing from the way I lead, love, and live right now, and what does that reveal about the seed I’ve been watering most?
2. Where in my life or work is the “flesh” still driving my decisions, through fear, pride, control, or comparison, and what would it look like to surrender that space to the Spirit instead?
3. If true leadership begins with crucifying the self, how can I build rhythms of humility, prayer, and patience into my daily routine so that my success reflects God’s character, not my ego?