Be Fruitful THEN Multiply
One of the catechism questions that I ask my kids for our Sabbath dinner on Saturday evenings is, “What was the first thing God told us to do?”
Do you know that answer? It isn’t about eating from any trees.
Here it is:
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
You might think this verse is talking about having kids. But, while kids are probably one of the most glorious ways of being fruitful and multiplying, I don’t think it’s limited to that.
Everything you do should be fruitful. Everything you touch should multiply. Take responsibility for everything that happens in your life. Happen to the world. Don’t let the world happen to you.
If something isn’t going well and it’s within your power to fix it—whether in your household or at your job or with the fish of the sea or the birds of the air or any creature—then fix it.
I also think it’s interesting that the order is first to be fruitful and then to multiply. I haven’t done an in-depth study on this, but this phrase is repeated often in Scripture and I don’t recall any place where the order is flipped to first multiply and then be fruitful.
Why?
If you haven’t been fruitful, then you don’t have anything to multiply.
Be effective first and then be efficient.
Make your first dollar and then figure out how to scale.
Multiplying, scale, efficiency are all worthless if you’re multiply by zero. Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
So decide what your focus needs to be right now. Should you be working on being fruitful? Or is it time to start multiplying?
What do you think?
Joseph