Soft to Hardwood

 

How then do I know what season I am in? Should I push to grow or wait in the Lord till the winter is over? How does one know?

Every person that I know strives to be validated as a person. We have these ideal and mental pictures of what it is that makes us successful. So we find ourself chasing after these goals and ideals in life hoping that it somehow will make us worthy of recognition. Even top executives like the monopoly giants in the world seem to be constantly pushing to have their latest idea voted in as the right thing to do.

In my profession, I see perhaps more than my fair share of homeless or destitute people, and it has been my experience that even for these people striving for recognition or social acceptance is key to their survival on a daily basis. When I look at my own life it’s clear that I am also driven by this need to be seen and validated by an external source. I am constantly seeking approval from God, my wife and even on some levels my peers.

This morning I woke up and asked the Lord where I should focus this blog and I was referred by the Holy Spirit back to the parable of the talents in Matt 25. In this particular chapter, the Lord uses a parable to illustrate the way or order of His Fathers house. Jesus shows us what we can and should expect from Gods Kingdom. Jesus also makes it clear that God’s house expects of us to be contributors to His house. To that end every person that has ever been born received a life loaded with unique potential.

Once we are saved or become members of God’s house the Holy Spirit becomes an indwelling spirit in our lives and in reference to I Corr 12v7 we are given the ability to manifest God’s Spirit in a way that only we are able to. I sometimes use the illustration that explains that we as grafted stems in the living stem draw our life force from it. We gain our strength and life force from our relationship with the Father through Jesus so we are able to bear fruit. The fruit however are ours to bear. We choose what fruit we produce. We decide how we will invest and develop the gifts that the Lord has entrusted us with.

In fact, when we gain a clear understanding of the Lords return we will start to see that He will ask us to explain what we had done with the lives and “talents” that His Spirit enabled us to produce. He sets before us the duty to be good stewards of His love and investment of us as He equips us to become progressively more able to serve Him better every day. These thoughts came together in my mind and it’s clear that this inherent desire that every human has to be recognised is a natural and instinctive response to the way that God had created us.

The desire for the approval of God is a natural one. It has been woven into the fibres of our soul and drives us relentlessly to work at our circumstances to become more effective, or do better at something. Constantly pushing ourselves to improve our circumstance and working hard day in and day out to improve our social or financial standing is a worldly manifestation of this ingrained desire to ultimately gain God’s approval. Throughout the world, people have created false deities in an effort to gain authoritative approval from a person above us.

Our desire to be recognised and to have a sense of approval is actually one of the most natural things in our lives. It’s when we chase after it outside the Godly perspective that we go off in the wrong direction by building excessive empires for ourselves instead of working toward returning God’s investment in us back to Him.

Over the last few weeks I have had the honour of discussing spiritual growth in particular with a young man passionate about his growth in the Lord and I found myself making a statement that perhaps I should say to myself from time to time. He was expressing his concern that he was not able to grow as much or as fast as he had been used to in recent times. By the Lords grace, I was able to explain to him, and perhaps more so to myself that growth takes place in seasons. We are surely meant to grow in God’s house as faithful servants, however there is more to just growing without taking time out to rest or recover. We are expected to bear fruit and God’s word is clear bout that.

The Lord also makes it clear that He would want us to bear more fruit and to reach that outcome in our lives He will prune away areas that actually bear fruit so that we are able to bear more fruit. The house where I lived in my younger years had an apricot tree in the garden and in some seasons it would bear so much fruit that some of the branches would actually break and fall to the ground. This process of Gods pruning not just enables us to be better fruit bearers but protects us from overburdening ourselves to a point of self-injury.

Then there is the process of winter. I have become frustrated at times when my life became stagnant or I felt like I was not going anywhere in my spiritual walk with the Lord. In my conversations with my young friend, it was shown to me that winter months is the time where our softer green wood become harder, stronger hardwood. We are all meant to grow and bear fruit. That much is clear from scripture. What we also need to understand that our lives need winters to harden our greenwood so we are better able to carry more fruit in our branches.

How then do I know what season I am in? Should I push to grow or wait in the Lord till the winter is over? How does one know?

Romans 12v2 “ Do not be conformed to this world, but continuously be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may be able to determine what Gods’ will is – what is proper, pleasing. And perfect”

STAY IN FELLOWSHIP WITH THE LORD AND HE WILL SHOW YOU THE WAY.

#GrowMySpirit

#OneCommandment