Years ago, an older pastor shared with our pastoral staff that, “healthy things grow.” It impacted me at the time and continues to impact me now. Have you ever noticed that healthy things grow? Plants, children, emotional lives, our relationship with God, and our relationship with other people are a few things that come to mind. If these things are healthy, they are progressing, moving forward, changing, metamorphasizing so to speak.
In my office, I have a picture of this phrase:
“Healthy things grow
Growing things change.
Change challenges us.
Challenge forces us to trust God.
Trust leads to obedience.
Obedience makes us healthy.
Healthy things grow…”
As you can see, it is a cycle. Even in our relationship with God, it seems as soon as we get comfortable, there will inevitably be some change which forces us to trust God in a new way.
For example….let’s say you step out and pray out loud for someone for the first time. It is scary. It is change. (But it also helps you grow spiritually.) The next thing you know, you might be leading in Children’s Ministry or leading a small group. It is challenging. Things come up which you have no answer for. It forces us to trust God and seek Him.
And then there are those times, when the person in your group does not get healed, the check does not come in the mail, _________(you fill in the blank) and easy answers just don’t come. And we learn to be obedient to God anyway. It is healthy. It is challenging and it forces us to grow.
We must choose to remember, that even if it is not easy, growth and change can be good. They may be challenging, but that forces us into the arms of our Father. (Or elsewhere if we make a poor choice)
May your journey be filled with healthy growing things!
Blessings,
Thora
