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It can be frustrating when we feel like we've been struggling with the same problem our entire life. The Scriptures are repetitive too, and they reflect the reality that so much of life seems to repeat itself. Our job is to find one way to defeat our enemy, then use that strategy again and again as we win over our temptations and dig deeper into ourselves to take the evil out at its root.

(References: Daniel 4:10-37)

We tend to think of "fruit" in two ways in natural language. One is as food that grows on trees and vines, sweet and delicious, and able to be eaten without harming the plant in any way. Another is as the things we produce, what our work yields for the betterment of the world. These are obviously connected: we are like trees, producing things that "feed" the world in some way, just as the tree produces fruit that feeds us. It makes sense, then, that the idea of fruit in the Bible is bound closely to the idea of goodness. Fruits that are eaten represent the desire for good and the energy to do what is good; fruit that is produced is the actual good that we go into the world and do.