When my kids were younger, checkups were part of life.
The doctor weighed them, measured their height, checked reflexes, compared everything to a chart. They weren’t looking for signs of life. They were looking for signs of development.
My kids were always in the 90th percentile for head size. They can thank me for that.
Many parents keep growth charts at home, marking a door frame every few months to celebrate another inch. We instinctively understand that healthy things should grow at a healthy pace.
Growth is expected.
When someone gives their life to Christ, no one hangs a spiritual growth chart on the wall. No one routinely asks, “Are you more like Jesus than you were a year ago?”
No one sits you down and takes a measurement of your joy. Or patience. Or love for your neighbor. So we often don’t even know if we are growing.
We’ve subtly confused conversion with maturity.
The writer of Hebrews confronted this issue:
“Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles... Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled... solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained” (Hebrews 5:12-14).
Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t accuse them of lacking the information already. He accuses them of lacking development.
Time itself doesn’t produce maturity. I know a lot of older people who have not matured at all. The angry, get off my lawn types.
What actually produces development is practice. Surrender. Obedience.
One of the most dangerous soundtracks plays quietly beneath our lives: You’re doing fine. You’re better than most people. Good enough.
“Good enough” has never been the measuring stick of the Kingdom. Jesus is.
Consider the Parable of the Talents.
The servant who buried his talent wasn’t condemned for stealing it or wasting it. He was condemned for refusing to develop what had been entrusted to him. He protected it. He preserved it. He never multiplied it.
How many of us have done the same with our faith? We haven’t walked away from God. We’ve simply stopped growing.
Then there’s Ananias and Sapphira, one of Scripture’s most unsettling stories. A husband and wife died because they lied about giving all the money they gained from selling property.
Their sin wasn’t simply keeping part of the money. Peter makes clear the land was theirs to do with as they pleased. Their sin was wanting the appearance of full surrender while holding something back.
That story still confronts us today.
We hold back forgiveness.
We hold back generosity.
We hold back disciplined prayer.
We hold back difficult obedience.
We hold back the conversations God is asking us to have.
Then we wonder why we aren’t growing.
I’ve played piano in church for almost twenty years.
I’ve played thousands of worship songs, and today I can play nearly anything a Sunday service requires.
For a long time I mistook that for growth. It wasn’t. Somewhere along the way I stopped stretching. I wasn’t getting worse. I simply stopped getting better.
Recently I decided to learn jazz chords. It felt miserable. My fingers couldn’t do what my mind wanted. Every practice session exposed weaknesses I’d hidden for years. More than once I wanted to quit and go back to the songs I already knew.
Discomfort was accomplishing something comfort can’t. It was making me grow.
John Owen wrote: “He who ceases from seeking after growth in grace ceases to have any.”
That sentence lives rent free in my head.
Healthy things should grow at least some.
A gardener isn’t satisfied with a garden that stays the same. They pull weeds, tend soil, figure out what’s choking the fruit. It’s sweaty work.
Growing things get uncomfortable. Comfortable things rarely grow.
Maybe the greatest threat to your spiritual life isn’t rebellion. Maybe it’s counterfeit contentment.
It is one of life’s paradoxes, Refuse to challenge yourself, and life will challenge you anyway. Enthusiasm fades. Vision goes stale. The things that used to light you up now only glow dim.
Find your next challenge.
Read the Bible in a year. Go on a fast. Memorize Scripture. Encourage 3 people a day.
Then measure yourself, not against the world, but against the fruit of the Spirit.
“Good enough” was never God’s goal for your life.
He didn’t redeem us only to forgive our past.
He redeemed us to transform our future.
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