Always growing

Always growing

Jul 24, 2019

Thought- Every new experience is a learning opportunity to grow deeper in our faith and trust in Jesus.

Scripture- “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” – Psalm 42:7

Insight: We are creatures of habit. Most of us like our comfort zones and look at change as the enemy. That is sometimes true in our faith walk as well. We settle into a comfort zone where we feel like we still have some semblance of control and we like to keep it that way. However, in order to grow in our faith, we must continually stretch ourselves and see every new experience as an opportunity to grow, learn and grow closer to our Lord.  There is always a deeper way to experience God and that responsible falls on our shoulders, not on His. As Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:6 we must be “poured out like a drink offering,” in order to grow closer to Him. In other words, we must surrender more and more so we can experience Him deeper and deeper and this is what leads to the exhilarating life of following the Lord of Lords. He will never force us out of our comfort zones, but if we stay there, we will over time lose our zest for the relationship that He desperately wants us to enjoy.

Like anything in life, what we get out of our relationship with Jesus is in direct proportion to what we put into it. If we want to experience the thrill of skydiving, we must be willing to jump out of the plane. That is the same in our faith walk. Greater and greater, deeper and deeper experiences await those who are willing to risk it all for Christ. Is this easy? Heck no, but at some point, we must be truthful that the things that this world says would make us happy have let us down. Our “comfort zones” have begun to close in on us and made us lethargic and apathetic to rekindling the joy of our salvation. Stretching ourselves leads to growth and joy as we learn just how much we can trust our God to take us to places where our fears prohibit us from going. “Deep call to deep,” as Psalm 42:7 above says, so how deep are you willing to go with Jesus? Anything new is a learning experience. Sometimes they teach us what not to do, or what doesn’t work for us, but that in itself is measurable growth. From there we can pivot and change courses as appropriate. But if like a boat we remain in the harbor, we may feel safe, but we will miss all the adventure that the Ocean has for us, and boats weren’t built to remain in the harbor. Neither were we made in the image of God to remain in our comfort zones. We were made for so much more!

Prayer- Father God, help us to focus on your promises in scripture to remove our fears and to step out in faith in seeing all new experiences as learning experiences on this earth. We admit, we like our comfort zones, but we never grow until we allow you to stretch us beyond what we think is possible That is where real joy in this life resides, so please help take us there. We pray in Jesus name. Amen!