The Root Of The Righteous Yieldeth Fruit

"The wicked desireth the net of evil men: but the root of the righteous yieldeth fruit." (Proverbs 12:12). In Mosiah 3:19 it talks about how we must "yield to the enticings of the spirit." Yield in this case means to give way to arguments, demands or pressure. But yield in the scripture from Proverbs I just quoted means to produce or provide a natural, agricultural or industrial product. When we are instructed that we must put off the natural man and yield to the Spirit, it seems like we are giving up our autonomy and control. We are in a battle and we have yielded the field to a superior foe. But that's not it at all. Without our Savior and His Atonement and the righteous, sanctifying, life-giving influence of the Holy Ghost, our lives will be barren and fruitless. Christ is the true vine, and unless we yield to the Spirit, then we are a lifeless stick that can yield no fruit. But if we first yield to the Spirit and connect ourselves to the root of all righteousness, then we will yield the fruits of the spirit in abundance. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:" (Galatians 5:22-23). This is the key to the second half of Mosiah 3:19. We become a saint and become submissive, meek, and humble, or in other words, we yield the fruits of the spirit because we first yielded to the enticings of the spirit. It's an infinite feedback loop. The more we yield to the enticings of the Spirit, the more fruits of the spirit we will yield, which in turn will lead us to yield more fully to the influence of the spirit, which will then cause us to yield more fruit and on and on. Yielding ourselves to the Spirit may seem scary at first, but our lives will be so much richer if we take that first brave, humble step.