Good morning…
A loyal “sue2you” subscriber wrote me a personal response to a recent message. “Your post was very comforting,” was the gist of her encouragement. Then she added the following P.S. “I had meant to write you on a previous post a couple of days ago about the trees. LOVED your analogy…always so vivid to strengthen my remembering! There was one line that I stopped and pondered, and still think about. It was something about we cannot speed up our spiritual transformation, or the like. In my life, I believe mine has sped up or slowed down, according to my choice of involvement in the word, among other Christians, in personal devotion times, etc. Maybe I did not understand ‘spiritual transformation.'”
I think we all have a lot to learn about being transformed by God’s mysterious Spirit.
Wisely, my friend is absolutely right, we can speed up or slow down the process of spiritual transformation, choosing or not choosing to be intimately involved with God’s Word, to enjoy faith discussions with other Christians (and non-Christians, I would add), and to invest in personal devotion time with the LORD. The more quality time we sow, the more spiritual fruit the LORD may grow. At the same time, the words I wrote in my post, “Our limbs and leaves,” are also deeply true. “We can not speed up our own spiritual transformation or the spiritual transformation of our loved ones. We can not slow down or stop life’s natural changes of season. God is doing God’s work within each one of us, in His time, at His pace, follow His own design.” We can speed up or slow down our process of spiritual transformation and, at the same time, we can not speed up our own spiritual transformation or slow down life’s natural change of season? How can these mysterious, contradictory truths co-exist?
Ultimately, our spiritual growth is God’s doing, not our own accomplishment. We can collaborate with the Creator of the universe by abiding, keeping our branch connected to God’s life-giving vine, but we are not in charge of our process of spiritual transformation, what colorful fruit will appear in our lives, when and how our seasons of faith will evolve. It is essential to remember, we can plant spiritual seeds and we can water beliefs, yet faith …God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow, 1 Corinthians 3:6b-7 (NIV). By studying God’s Word, discussing candidly matters of faith, and investing ourselves intimately with the LORD, we are …holding fast to the head [of the body, Jesus Christ], from whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows with the growth [that can come only] from God, Colossians 2:20b (AMP).
God is in charge of our spiritual growth. Through the LORD’s invisible, magnetic pull, we are drawn to abide, to collaborate, to remain intimately connected. Faced with divine power beyond our understanding, we can resist or we can rest in God’s nourishing arms,
Sue
