What are you feeding that boy?

I remember hearing a story once, how Billy Graham in later years came to the conclusion that the majority of people who were converted at his Crusades were never really converted at all. He said that had that many people come to know Christ it would have made an unmissable impact on the world, which it hadn't. I wish I knew where to find the interview where it happened but I can't track it down.
I am not trying to disparage Billy Graham's work in any way. I mention it because for a long time that was my belief and my attitude. I felt that someone with no fruit to show was probably not a believer. I always felt the difficulty with that belief, because I knew that I was a believer and I also knew that I had precious little to show. But I felt convinced that Christians wouldn't just stay where they were and never seem to grow in the Lord or have a ministry.
The question is:Are there real and genuine Children of the King, whose lives show no noticeable sign of change? For a long time, I would have answered that question with a resounding NO!, but perhaps I was undervaluing the importance of Christian Encouragement?

¹⁷ This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, ¹⁸ having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; ¹⁹ who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
²⁰ But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, ²³ and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, ²⁴ and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4

When a man is taken by Christ, a new man is born inside of him, and we are left with a somewhat bizarre situation. There is a grown man, or if a child still someone with years of experience and habit, years of doing things their way, of seeing things through the cynical, despairing, unloving eyes of the flesh. And there is an invisible, mute, newborn child occupying not only the same body but the same mind, feeling the same emotions, experiencing the same ups and downs of life. In some ways the baby is more mature and wiser than the Old Man, but it is still a baby. It is a seed, an incorruptible, immortal, spiritual seed, but just a seed.
When we think of Christ's parable of the seed falling on different soils, some on good ground, some on stony, some among the weeds, some on dry ground, we are accustomed to thinking of only the one that falls on good ground as being a Christian and the rest as never coming to anything. But where is our love and pity for those other souls? Perhaps some we can do nothing for, but I was once dry ground, and godly men and women did not say "Oh well dry ground". They watered and encouraged me. And if we wish to be like our Father, the Gardener, then pulling weeds is a good start.
So, back to Billy, perhaps the greatest seed planter of the last century. Some of that seed fell on ground that was just plain good. And it just sprouted up like nobody's business. And some of it fell in the weeds, and some fell on dry ground, and some fell on stony ground. Not Billy's fault, he scattered that seed into every ear that would listen. But is that the end of the story, or has God called some of us to be waterers and weed pullers? When we see a child who grows quickly we say, "What are you feeding that boy?!", recognizing the importance to growth of having the necessities. But when we see a Christian who seems trapped in worldliness, discouraged, and without hope we blame them, when we should look at those charged with encouraging them and say, "What are you feeding that boy?!"
I want to apologize now to my brother, Chris. for failing to encourage you all these years. For years, I have practically written you off as a Christian. I don't know what is in your heart, but I owe you better than what I have given you. I have seen your failures, and rather than helping you to get up and do better, or even hoping and having faith in you, I have chosen to doubt you, to talk about you behind your back. Let's not play, you have plenty of failures, you don't seem to be a very effective Christian. But it was never my place to run you down or write you off. Is it just a coincidence that you have so few people in your life who believe in you and encourage you? Why have I not stood beside you as a brother should? How much different would our world be if I had chosen to encourage you?