The Place of Spiritual Growth in the Christian Life (part two)

How about this title? Incredible Spiritual Growth in Five Easy Steps! Yeah, right. If there's anyone out there who knows these five steps, please tell me. Sure, I'd give them a try at least. Perhaps there are five steps, but I doubt that they're easy.

Instead, the title of this series focuses on the place of spiritual growth within the grand scheme of the Christian faith. Is spiritual growth the most important thing? There was a time in my past when I placed too much emphasis on it, and consequently experienced unnecessary guilt and a sense of failure at my lack of growth.

Occasionally in this blog I'll mention some "how to's" on growth, because I believe we should be progressing spiritually, but first I'd like to mention the most important thing we should focus on. Here's a great verse that helps me get my priorities straight: "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." (Psalm 46:10 NIV) My primary focus should be on God, not myself. The Lord is exalted, whether I exist or not. If I'm focused too much on my own self improvement, is it because I want people to bow down in awe, marveling at Mr. Spiritual Giant Tom? No, the focus should be on the one true God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There does come a point when I need to look in the mirror and assess my life -- where it is and where it's going. In one sense I will rightfully conclude that my current life has fallen way short of where it should be. I'll call this current life "the now." Where it should be is "the not yet."

Let's camp in "the now" for awhile. I'll borrow and embellish an illustration by Teresa of Avila (16th century) that I heard from a teaching by Dr. John Coe that compares our lives to a garden. If my life were a garden, then it would be full of healthy, beautiful plants, as well as weeds and sickly plants. What if God were to visit my garden? What if he decided to live there? Am I going to tell God to only look at the healthy plants? No, the Lord wants me to invite Him on a tour of the weeds and sickly plants. Will he look at me in wrath and demand that I pluck up every bad plant? No. Instead he will tell me that he loves and accepts me, weeds and all. He will also tell me that I'm fully pleasing to him and perfectly righteous. This is "the now."

Then there's "the not yet." Does God ignore the weeds? No. He's very aware of them. In fact, not only does the Lord want to live in my garden, he wants to be the chief gardener. However, it's up to me to say yes. Then he begins the process of getting rid of the weeds and sickly plants, and replacing them with healthy plants.

[8/31/16 update: I don't think God just comes in and plucks up the weeds. The weeds often have deep roots that I'm not aware of. The upper, visible part of the weed could represent sinful actions that are obvious. The roots represent the hidden heart problem that causes the negative action. So, part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us to a place where we are willing to look at the hidden part of our heart that we've been too ashamed to look at, even thinking we can hide it from God. The good news is that God wants to be right there with us as we acknowledge our dark, hidden roots. We need not be ashamed to expose the deep roots of our sin to God. At some point, the weed and its deep roots will be pulled and replaced by the life of Christ.]

But I'm getting ahead of myself. In the next post, I'll continue to focus on "the now," and why it's possible for God to love and accept me despite all those weeds.