Nobody wants to hear that their struggles, sacrifices, and best efforts may not be enough. Yet life teaches this lesson relentlessly: we are not ultimately measured by how hard we tried, but by what our efforts produced.

We, of course, like to believe otherwise. We count the hours we worked, the sacrifices we made, the sleepless nights, the disappointments endured, the money spent, the miles traveled, and the number of times we tried. We tell ourselves—and sometimes everyone around us—how hard we worked.

But in the final analysis, it is not the magnitude of our effort that matters most, but the fruit it ultimately bears.

Jesus taught this principle with remarkable simplicity:

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20)

He did not say, “By their intentions ye shall know them.” He did not say, “By their sacrifices,” “by their struggles,” or even “by their sincerity.” He said by their fruits.

That principle reaches into nearly every aspect of mortal life—our employment, marriages, friendships, families, ministries, businesses, and even our relationship with God. Effort matters enormously, but only because effort is the means by which we learn, change, grow, serve, and eventually produce good fruit.

Effort is not the destination.

No One Eats the Labor

Imagine a farmer who spends an entire spring working from sunrise until sunset. He plows hundreds of acres, burns thousands of gallons of fuel, repairs equipment, fights weeds, loses sleep, and exhausts himself.

Autumn arrives. There is no crop. Can the farmer feed his family with his effort? Can he take his hours of labor to market? Can hungry people eat his sacrifice? Of course not. Something went wrong. Perhaps he planted bad seeds. Perhaps he planted at the wrong time. Perhaps he failed to irrigate. Perhaps the soil was unsuitable. Perhaps circumstances beyond his control destroyed the crop.

His effort may have been sincere. His sacrifice may have been enormous. We may sympathize deeply with him. But sympathy cannot transform an empty field into wheat.

The purpose of planting is harvesting.

The season of planting is not the season of reaping, but eventually there must be a harvest. But what are the fruits of the harvest?

Paul expressed essentially the same principle:

“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7)

This is one of God’s great laws. There are causes and there are effects. There are choices and there are consequences. There are principles and there are fruits.

Wisdom consists, in large measure, of learning which causes produce which effects.

Relationships Are No Different

This becomes particularly difficult to accept in relationships because we naturally evaluate ourselves according to our intentions.

“I was trying.”

“I worked hard.”

“I sacrificed for you.”

“I did everything I knew how to do.”

Those statements may all be completely true. But another question remains:

What did my efforts actually produce in the lives of others?

A husband may work seventy hours a week because he loves his family and wants to provide for them. His intentions may be noble. But if what his wife and children desperately need is his presence, attention, affection, patience, counsel, and companionship, then he may discover that enormous effort in one area cannot compensate for neglect in another.

Similarly, I see many men and women spend countless hours involved in ministries, callings, church service, and temple worship, while woefully neglecting the needs of their own families at home.

Likewise, someone may spend enormous energy trying to “help” another person while never stopping long enough to discover what that person actually needs, or if they are even serving the right people.

Love cannot merely ask, How much am I giving?

Love must also ask, Is what I am giving actually blessing the people I claim to love the most?

Christ’s ministry demonstrates this beautifully. He did not simply perform impressive acts so that He could say He had served. He saw people. He listened. He discerned their needs. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, comforted the grieving, taught the ignorant, forgave the repentant, rebuked hypocrisy, and called sinners to repentance in constructive ways.

His service produced something.

It produced great goodness and righteousness in countless ways.

The Difference Between Effort and Mastery

One of the clearest signs of mastery is the ability to produce extraordinary results without unnecessary effort.

A novice may struggle for hours with something an expert accomplishes in ten minutes. That does not mean the expert is lazy. Quite the opposite. What we are witnessing in those ten minutes may represent twenty years of learning.

Consider the old parable of the mechanic and the golden hammer.

A massive machine in a factory suddenly stops working. Production comes to a halt. Engineers and employees cannot determine what is wrong, so the factory owner finally calls a highly experienced mechanic.

The mechanic arrives and quietly examines the machine. After several minutes, he reaches into his toolbox, removes a tiny hammer, walks to one particular part of the machine, and gives it a single tap.

The machine immediately roars back to life.

Soon afterward, the factory owner receives a bill for an enormous amount of money. Outraged, he protests. “You were here for only ten minutes! All you did was hit the machine once!”

The mechanic replies: “You aren’t paying me to swing the hammer. You’re paying me because I knew where to hit it.”

That is mastery.

The novice expends enormous energy because he does not yet understand the system. The master understands causes and effects so thoroughly that his effort becomes precise.

This principle appears everywhere.

An inexperienced pilot may constantly chase the instruments, making correction after correction. An experienced pilot anticipates what the airplane will do and makes one small correction before the deviation ever develops.

One works harder. The other flies better. The goal is not maximum activity. The goal is mastery.

But Mastery Has a Price

There is an important danger here. Someone could take this principle and conclude that hard work is unnecessary. Nothing could be further from the truth. The master who makes something look effortless almost certainly passed through a season when nothing was effortless. Before there was precision, there was repetition. Before there was competence, there was failure. Before there was confidence, there was uncertainty. Before there was harvest, there was planting and hard work.

Nearly every meaningful accomplishment requires a period of delayed gratification in which effort vastly exceeds visible results. This is where many people quit. They exercise for three days and see little change. They start a business and nobody buys anything. They begin studying and still feel ignorant. They try to repair a marriage and encounter resistance. They pray and heaven seems silent. They seek God and receive no great manifestation. And they conclude that nothing is happening.

But seeds grow underground for a long time before anything breaks the surface.

There is a season in which faith requires us to continue working intelligently and faithfully without yet seeing any benefit or harvesting any fruit.

The Book of Mormon teaches:

“Ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” (Ether 12:6)

That word after matters.

God frequently requires lots of calculated effort before evidence.

That is the great test of delayed gratification: Can I continue sowing when I cannot yet see the harvest?

Faith Is Not Aimless Effort

Yet faith must never become an excuse for endlessly repeating something that produces bad fruit. There is a difference between perseverance and stubbornness.

Perseverance continues toward the objective. Stubbornness continues using the same ineffective method merely because we are emotionally invested in it.

Sometimes greater effort is necessary. Sometimes greater wisdom is necessary. Sometimes a change of strategy is necessary.

Sometimes, when we think we have completed a long and difficult project, someone comes along and tells us we’ve only just begun.

And sometimes we have to try, and try, and try again until finally we get it right. 

If you are rowing with tremendous strength but pointed in the wrong direction, rowing harder merely carries you farther from your intended destination.

Applied strength and effort is not merit; effectiveness is.

As it turns out, velocity combined with good flight path management matter a lot in arriving at the intended destination!

Situational awareness, well calculated effort, and persistence matters.

Truth matters.

God has established laws upon which consequences are predicated. Our task is not merely to exert ourselves but to discover those laws, align ourselves with truth, and then act accordingly.

Faith does not abolish cause and effect. Faith requires us to act according to true principles even before we can see their ultimate consequences.

Faith requires that we learn to correctly anticipate cause and effect. And this isn’t just faith. This is wisdom.

This is why Alma’s experiment upon the word is so profound. He does not merely tell us to believe something forever regardless of what happens. He tells us to plant the seed and observe what it produces. (Alma 32)

Does it enlarge the soul? Does it enlighten understanding? Does it become delicious? Does it grow? Then something has been learned.

Truth rightly applied bears fruit.

Good Religion Must Produce Good Fruit

This principle becomes particularly important in religion.

People sometimes believe that religious effort is inherently righteous simply because it is religious.

Hours of meetings.

Years of service.

Money donated.

Scriptures read.

Prayers offered.

Rules obeyed.

Sacrifices made.

These can all be good if done properly.

But Christ repeatedly warned against religious activity that failed to produce righteousness.

The Pharisees were extraordinarily religious people. They fasted. They prayed. They tithed. They studied scripture. They carefully observed religious requirements.

Their problem was not insufficient religious effort. Their religious works were extensive and impressive.

Their problem was that all that effort was failing to produce the character of Christ.

Jesus described the weightier matters as:

“judgment, mercy, and faith.” (Matthew 23:23)

Religious activity that does not make us more truthful, merciful, humble, courageous, charitable, discerning, faithful, and Christlike has missed its purpose.

The ordinances, scriptures, commandments, prayer, fasting, worship, and sacrifice are not trophies.

They are tools of transformation.

The objective is not to accumulate religious activity. The objective is to become something better than what we were.

The Struggle is Only the Beginning

There is something almost seductive about struggle.

Struggle gives us a story.

We can tell people how difficult everything has been. We can recount our sacrifices. We can explain how hard we tried. Sometimes we even begin deriving our identity from the struggle itself.

But struggle is not the objective.

Neither God nor the world particularly needs us to be exhausted. They need us to become effective.

There is no virtue in making a simple task unnecessarily difficult. There is no righteousness in spending ten hours producing what wisdom could accomplish in one hour. There is no nobility in repeatedly making the same mistake and congratulating ourselves for perseverance.

Wisdom seeks effectiveness.

Knowledge seeks carefully planned and practiced precision.

Experience eliminates wasted motion.

Mastery produces greater fruit with increasingly precise and focused effort.

And that enables us to give even more.

The Highest Measure of Value

The world generally measures value through money, productivity, achievement, influence, and results.

Those measurements have their place.

But Christ gives us a higher standard.

The greatest value we can ultimately produce is not merely what we accumulate but what we can give and what we are faithful in giving.

The Savior said:

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

A successful life, therefore, cannot finally be measured by how much wealth we accumulated, how many projects we completed, how many people knew our name, or even how efficiently we performed our work.

The final question is larger:

What good did my life actually produce?

Did people become better because I was there?

Did I relieve suffering?

Did I teach truth?

Did I raise children who knew and understood the gospel?

Did I forgive?

Did I defend the weak?

Did I create something useful?

Did I bring light where there was darkness?

Did I become more like Christ?

Did I develop within myself the character and attributes of Christ?

Did I help others do the same?

Those are fruits worthy of great reward.

By Their Fruits

Make no mistake about it. Effort absolutely matters. Sacrifice matters. Discipline matters. Persistence matters.

But sometimes we must labor for years before seeing anything resembling a harvest. We should never despise that season. It is often during those seemingly barren years that God is quietly producing competence, wisdom, humility, patience, and character within us.

But effort is not the final measure. Fruit is.

So work hard—but learn.

Sacrifice—but observe.

Persist—but correct course.

Pray—but listen.

Study—but apply.

Believe—but act.

Serve—but pay attention to whether your service actually effectively blesses.

And above all, seek truth, because truth teaches us where to place the hammer, where and how to plant the seed, where and how to direct our effort, and where and how God would have us labor.

Ultimately, the objective is not to struggle harder.

It is to become wiser.

It is to become more effective.

It is to become more fruitful.

And it is to become more like Christ.

For when the Lord of the vineyard finally comes seeking fruit, the question will not be how exhausted the servants became while tending the trees.

The question will be:

What manner of fruit did the vineyard actually produce?

---