One of the greatest truths in Scripture is that God uses men and women who are imperfect: doubting Thomas, impulsive Peter, skeptical Nathaniel, and crooked Matthew. This gives me great hope that God can use me despite my shortcomings. Like an athlete training for the Olympics, each day He points out areas of my life that need to be improved – not to minimize my progress or make me feel like a failure, but to hone my character to be more Christlike. In Christ, I am being perfected day by day.
Tag Archives: Spiritual Growth
Pearls
God allows ‘irritants’ to enter our lives so that we might grow, develop perseverance, and mature in our faith. He could prevent them, shield us from harm, and heal every disease. But God is more focused on the eternal than the here and now. Our difficulties are evidence that God is refining us. He loves us too much to leave us as we are.
Roots
What’s true in nature is also true in our spiritual life; we are only as strong as our roots. If our spiritual life is shallow and we settle for a “good enough” faith, we run the risk of being easily toppled when the storms of life hit us.
But when our roots grow deep down into Christ, when we embrace the storms as opportunities to reach further down into the soil and become firmly established in Him, our roots grow stronger and deeper, enabling us to stand firm in the midst of the hard times.