Tag Archives: Faith

Slow Growth in a Fast World

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“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
(1 John 3:2-3)

Waiting is difficult when we in a digital society.  We get frustrated today because our movie takes a couple of minutes to download, forgetting that we used to have to actually drive to the store, pick out what’s available on the shelf, and hope that the person who watched it before you did the whole “be kind, rewind” thing on the VHS tape. We have convinced ourselves that everything we really need should come quickly and effortlessly, and when it doesn’t, something must be wrong.

The reality is, the things that have true, lasting value in our lives take time. Athletes know there are no shortcuts to success; champions only grow over time through hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Financial success happens only through discipline, delayed gratification, and long-term planning.  Healthy relationships take time, energy, and effort to maintain; they don’t just happen.  Anything worth having requires dedication, effort, and patience.

This goes for our own maturity in our Christian walk. Growth in the Christian life doesn’t just happen, and it certainly doesn’t happen quickly.   Simply growing older doesn’t bring maturity in faith and understanding.  We say we want to grow in our faith and understanding, but are we ready to put in the work that is required for this growth to happen.

  • We pray for patience, and God will put us in situations where patience is required.
  • We pray for wisdom, and God will put us in situations where we must lean on His Word.
  • We pray for faith, and God puts us in situations where we are racked with doubts and must learn to trust Him.

The living out of our faith in Christ is a slow, laborious process.  There is never a plateau in the Christian journey, never a time when we have “arrived.”  God is always working in us to bring us more into the likeness of Christ.

We are God’s children now, John says in our text today, but we are not yet what we shall be.  By faith we trust that we have been united with Christ, justified in the eyes of God, covered by the righteousness of Christ.  Even so, we continue to grow, trusting in the inward working of God’s Holy Spirit.  Working toward that growth, we make use of the means that God has given:

  • Regular Worship and sitting under faithful Teaching of God’s Word,
  • Daily Study and Reflection on Scripture,
  • Prayer – praising God, repenting of our sins, seeking His grace to guide you.

Somedays it seems like we’re making little to no headway.  Instead of growing, we feel like we’re falling behind. But don’t give up!  Watching your children grow every day you often don’t notice the changes.  But when the Grandparents come to visit, what’s the first thing they say? “Look how you’ve grown!”  God works His transforming grace often in slow, immeasurable ways, but in the end His work is perfect and complete.

As John’s letter says, everyone who hopes in the coming of Christ purifies himself as Christ is pure.  Knowing who we are, and who Christ is making us to be, keep striving toward that goal of Christ-likeness until He appears and we are made like Him.

SDG

At Home in the Brokenness

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“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
(Psalm 51:17)

At the end of the worship service on Sunday, I couldn’t remember the benediction.

It was just gone. Nada. Nothing.

We all got a chuckle out of it. It was a little humbling, a reminder that I am all too human, and an encouragement to everyone else who has experienced moments of forgetfulness.

Monday brought another reminder of my brokenness, but in an entirely different way. I was down for the day with another headache. Eerily similar to the headache that put me in the hospital for a week last year, this one came out of nowhere, with the feeling that a balloon was being inflated inside my head. Having learned from past experience, I didn’t try to push through the pain, but spent the day down, resting and praying that God would bring relief.

And God demonstrated His mercy.  Fortunately, the headache left as quickly as it came on. It only lasted for a day, but the lingering effects remain:

  • Physically, my head feels like its been beaten, tired and sore.
  • Emotionally, there’s now that lingering worry that another headache is just around the corner.
  • Spiritually, I know what it is to be broken.

I’m only 43.  I should be in my “prime active years.”  In running terms, I’m mid race, and should be striding out and setting the pace for the years to come. And yet, for almost an entire day, it was all I could do to just sit up from the couch for a glass of water.

This came as yet another vivid reminder of my brokenness.  I thought I was strong, and a headache brought me to my knees. I try to take on more and more, convinced that I can balance it all, and then I am reminded of just how delicate that balance really is. When I want to bring God my best, I find that my best is nothing more than a broken and ragged mess.

I am reminded of Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 10, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” I am aware Paul’s dealing with temptation of idolatry here, but is not our tendency to slip into self-reliance and trust in our own ability another form of idolatry?

Psalm 147:10 reminds me that God’s “delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.”  Psalm 51:17 reminds us that, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

I’ve always considered the phrase “a broken spirit” to be synonymous with “a broken and contrite heart.” I assumed that it meant a humility in light of our sinfulness, an awareness of our desperate need for a savior, a penitent heart that seeks the mercy of God. All of that is true. But I’ve come to realize that “broken spirit” means much more. To be broken in spirit is to broken off from self. It means putting to death all confidence in the flesh, and resting entirely upon his gracious work within me.

But there is a beauty in brokenness; a grace found here that is rare elsewhere. In this weakness His strength is made perfect (2 Cor. 12:19). When we find we cannot hold on to Him any longer for our strength is gone, we find “the eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut 33:27).

No one asks to be broken, and yet it is only in our brokenness that we truly come to see and know the extent of God’s grace and mercy towards us. It is only in the acknowledgement of the absolute wreck that I have made of my life that I begin to understand the length to which Christ went to secure my salvation. It is only when I consider the frailty of my faith that I begin to comprehend the wonder of God’s steadfast and unchanging love in which I have been called.  It is only when I realize how small my strength is, how short I can reach, that I can rest secure in His “victorious right hand” (Isa 41:10).

Rich Mullins wrote a song that’s been speaking to me recently, appropriately titled, “We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are.” The first verse and chorus go:

Well, it took the hand of God Almighty
To part the waters of the sea
But it only took one little lie
To separate you and me
Oh, we are not as strong as we think we are.

We are frail
We are fearfully and wonderfully made
Forged in the fires of human passion
Choking on the fumes of selfish rage
And with these our hells and our heavens
So few inches apart 
We must be awfully small
And not as strong as we think we are.

Here’s the video: