The Lie About Spiritual Growth
Essays, Featured — By Russ Masterson on July 9, 2010 at 9:02 am
I’d just purchased the ring I’d give Kristy as an engagement ring. I carefully placed it in my passenger seat, making sure I buckled it in, glancing down at it every thirty seconds as I drove home. It was a treasure I could hold and move. I could tuck it away not to be seen or flaunt it around for all to admire. I could manage this treasure more than any treasure I’d owned before, more than my truck or my education, and definitely more than my faith. Faith is difficult like that; it can’t be tucked into your pocket or buckled into your passenger seat.
Faith can’t be managed. It can’t really be obtained, only received. It’s given by God – entered into by powerless people. Jesus uses a variety of images to describe faith, one being that of a treasure. But He doesn’t use the treasure metaphor to teach about the nature of faith, primarily the value of it. The faith metaphors Jesus uses about the nature of faith are things like farming and marriage and trees. Things that take a long time and aren’t easily evaluated in a given day.
A month ago I stood on the shores of my family’s lake house with a long awkward pole saw, cutting high-up limbs that blocked our view of the water. And would you believe the entire time I was out there, some half a day, I never once noticed one of those trees grow. The same is true with my marriage. I’ve never seen it grow in a day’s evaluation. And if I was a farmer with a straw hat atop my head and crops behind my house, I imagine the same would be true – these things take time to grow.
I think we’ve overrated the concept of spiritual growth. I know for years a yearning to grow governed my behavior yet condemned most of my eventually imperfect disciplines. This idea that we must have progress and growth everyday actually stunts progress and growth. It certainly kills the freedom we have in the grace of God. Faith with one eye on Jesus and the other on a tape measure begins as merry motivation but becomes condemnation in time.
After living with this constant evaluation of my faith, and the frustration that any tree would feel if it measured its growth on a daily basis, I decided to rest. I’d just be. I’d let the rain nourish my roots and the sun feed my soul. At times I’d absorb new nutrients, and at times, I’d soak in the goodness I already knew. And thankfully, I would keep my yellow tape measure on my workbench, not next to my Bible.
4 Comments
Russ:
I get your point and upon quick observation, I have to disagree with the idea that some in the church have “overrated the concept of spiritual growth.” Paul tells Timothy that faith is something to pursue – it is in the activity that we grow.
Throughout Hebrews chapter 11 we are presented with example upon example of the blessings provided those who acted on faith – again, this is a pursuit not something “only received.”
Plenty of people make the mistake of measuring their spiritual growth in order to hold themselves in a high regard. In this, there is a lack of humility so one can challenge the idea of spiritual growth as merely being a growth in knowledge. But to believe that growing in faith is innactivity on our part misses the point.
I guess I don’t really see this piece as promoting inactivity. I see it as letting go of the need to unceasingly stop and measure from day-to-day how our progress is going.
And on that, I agree with Russ whole-heartedly. The things God teaches me amidst the falling down, falling short, and feeling like I will absolutely never get it right…well, they accumulate beautifully into real growth over time…measured more like year-to-year than moment-to-moment.
It’s a hard thing, letting go of constant in-the-moment measuring, because it feels like weakness. And I suppose in a way it IS – it is acknowledging that I am not the one working the miracle in my life…He is.
Thanks for the post. I absolutely need grace everyday a lot more than I need growth. I tend to think the idea of growth is elusive. What one needs to grow into depends on the situation they are in, the stage of life, the place, the people. But more than that, we are by nature people with foibles. One can learn to better manage them, but strangely, new ones can often come into play. You might think you are older and wiser to some, but to others you are only more set in your ways. I often think of the example of Mother Teresa, who struggled mightily with doubt, almost more so, as she became older.
Spiritual growth requires spiritual discipline. What that means is that we have to work at it. It means being in the Word everyday. It means being in prayer and spending time meditating on the Word. We can’t wait for the proverbial bolt of lightning to percipitate spiritual growth. It’s easy to be a Christian when things are going well. It’s when things are in the toilet and our faith is being tested that we have the greatest opportunity for growth.