Saturday, July 11, 2009

New Growth

There's a plant that's been on my office desk for at least two years. I've never claimed to have a green thumb, in fact I think I remember telling the person who gave it to me, "If you want it to die that's a great place for it," as it was placed on my desk.

However, despite my inability to keep plants alive, this one has persevered and even grown a little bit. But my friend did observe that the plant has very little new growth since it was placed in my care. I blame the lack of sunlight- my office has no exterior windows. Other theories include the occasional week or two without water....The point is that most plants require water, the right temperature, sunlight, and fertile soil to grow...maybe some other things- like I said, I'm not a gardening expert.

Growing faith is much the same. We need more than one avenue to help grow our faith: individual prayer time, reflection, corporate worship, personal devotional, Bible study... all of these help us grow our knowledge and faith. Unfortunately, our culture doesn't usually lend itself to spending hours and hours focused on God. Truthfully, it's very hard to devote even an hour to any kind or combination of disciplines in our society.

Sometimes I get frustrated when I feel I'm stuck in a rut of some sort with my faith. I wonder if I've made any progress at all in the past year? In these times, it's easy to lash out and blame God for "not being there when I needed You." But, usually I have to face the truth and admit that I've let life get between myself and my God. Sure I go to church, and maybe even to the weekly Bible study, but I haven't truly sought God on a personal level. Or maybe when I showed up at church, I was more concerned with the people than the worship....

So maybe I wasn't preparing the soil or getting any sunlight- that would explain the lack of growth. Today, seek God and ask that your faith be increased. See if you don't notice a difference.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11: 6

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