Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Spiritual Growth Spurts

There are seasons of our lives in which we feel we are spectators of the most boring soap opera ever created. We move through time feeling completely unaffected by it. The days are somewhat blah, and even our connection with God seems strangely silent. Oh, there are moments of clarity and connection, but generally we don't perceive movement in our lives. At least movement that has any lasting value.

Time is a tricky thing. When you watch a clock, you see no movement, no change. But if you look away for a time, then return to the clock, you do indeed see movement. You do see change, and you perk up a bit because it's nearly quitting time!

Growth is a lot like that watched clock.

We don't always have a clarity that we are changing or growing. We watch the growth indicators of our lives and don't see the thing moving. Then we get discouraged and loose heart.

My observation about my own life has been that its the smallest things that make the biggest impact on me.

Yes, formal education and seminars etc. are valued and have a part to play in my growth. But truthfully? It's usually a small moment in my life that causes me the greatest growth.

Someone speaks a word into my life. ?You do that very well.?

Or while listening to a song on my mp3 player my spirit is suddenly taken to other places and something deep within me is shifted.

Or I'll have a dream that refreshes my understanding of something.

I read an idea in a book that makes me think about things differently.

A need is met through an individual.

You get a new insight from time spent with a Counselor.

These small moments are like things that shape who we are. They shape us well, like the illustrations given, or they shape us negatively, like when someone breaks our trust and we withdraw from them and from life.

They are like bumps in our lives that change the future for us. Our trajectory, our direction is shifted just subtly and we don't see it's effect till we're down the road a ways.

I went over a bump last year that I thought was a small thing. Turns out it was bigger than I thought.

If you recall, one morning during prayer I had just a small picture go through my mind of what my spirit looked like. My opinion was that my spirit was kind of like a basement dungeony place where Jesus went in to clean and clear up. Kind of set up shop in me.
This new image was that my spirit was a place of ?Hills and valleys, streams and forests. A place where God moves into, if we let him. And his presence in the space begins to turn it green and makes it come alive, producing all kinds of fruit.

He might be over in this area creating a shady green valley with a brook running through it. Or he might be over there creating a building structure in which we will house memories of close intimate times.

He may be at work rooting out some nasty weeds or some underbrush that has taken over an area that He wants to turn into a lovely park.?


That simple image is changing my perception of who I am. Its amazing how it works, yet it does.

Perhaps we simply need to relax and let God change us by using these bumps or seemingly small shifts that, down the road, will make a huge difference in our lives.

And maybe we need to look at other people in our lives a bit, take our eyes off ourselves. Get busy being involved in life and living.

Then when you look back at yourself, you will observe change and growth that you couldn't see when you were staring at the clock.

3 comments:

  1. Excellent post. It reminds me of that line from The Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'". I'm a big fan of the carpe diem thing, at least in principle (because I sure don't act on it very often).

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  2. Thanks for the encouragement (and kick in the pants)!!

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  3. Thank you for that. It was what I needed to hear and had been needing to hear for a while.



    Thank you.

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