Fig trees, if they are well tended and taken care of, can produce fruit for over 100 years. So also, you, if you make sure good words and edifying words proceed from your mouth, may be producing fruit for hundreds of years to come – even after you are dead and in heaven.
On a fig tree, the fruit appears before anything else. It appears on the tree even before the leaves or flowers do. The fig trees never actually have any visible blossoms. This is because the blossoms are inverted and actually grow and develop inside the fruit. It is pollinated by a tiny wasp known as a Blastophaga. This stingerless insect no bigger than a gnat enters through a little opening at the bottom of the fig and so pollinates it from the inside.
This is just how we as disciples of Christ produce fruit also. The flowers form on our inside – often where no one can see them – and are pollinated by the invisible and silent Holy Spirit. The fruit results of inward change that is unseen by any human eye. This is why we cannot judge people by outward appearances or behaviours. We do not know what is going on in the hearts of others people.