Skip to main content

The Subjectivity of Growth


2 Peter 3:18  

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever” 

 Before I finished school, I set the expectation of being intentional with my growth with God. I pictured myself being more knowledgeable on the bible, praying longer and contributing more ‘meaningful’ things in Bible discussion. 

If you want me to be honest, none of those things have happened, or at least what it looks like to me. I haven’t been reading my bible more, my prayers are rushed and at times ritualistic and I still say the same things in bible discussion. I’m only saying this to show you that what looks like growth to us may not be what God is trying to grow us in.

Although all those things that I wanted to do are good, they were my expectation: not Gods. And this isn’t to say that if you do any of those things you’re not growing, you definitely are. But I feel like as Christians we can manufacture our own expectations of what we want our growth to look like, and at times when we don’t see that picture in the mirror we can get discouraged or feel like we’re not going anywhere. 

One thing I’ve come to realise is that growth looks differently on different people. Maybe you’re naturally a pessimistic person and during this season God is teaching you to be more hopeful for things, that’s growth. Maybe you’ve held unforgiveness towards a person for so long and now when you see them you no longer have bad thoughts towards them, that’s growth. You should never discredit what growth is because it’s subjective and individualistic.

From reading this verse, you’re probably asking, “how does knowledge of Jesus help me to grow?” and I wouldn’t blame you in asking that question. But once we really study the life of Jesus; we see there are multiple sides to him. There are times where he is empathetic, there are times where he is loving and compassionate but also times where he can be quite bold and confrontational. 

I say all this to identify the multifaceted character of Jesus is a direct correlation to our growth. Our growth too is multifaceted and there are different areas in our life that needs growth in different seasons. So, in simple words, the different areas of Jesus are what each of us need to grow in, and God appoints us to embody those areas at different times and in different ways.

Perhaps you have an anger problem and studying the life of Jesus can teach you to adopt his patience. Maybe you come across as quite arrogant, but having knowledge of Jesus’s humility could change that. Perhaps you struggle spending time alone, and studying all the times Jesus went to a quiet place to speak with God could help you. Every aspect of Jesus’s life, every word he said, every experience he endured, calls us to grow.  

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equipping ourselves

Ephesians 6:13   “ Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand”   Recently I had a conversation with one of my friends. Before our interaction, I didn’t set any expectation other than simply just seeing how they were doing. To my surprise, my friend asked me a question: and what was just a simple question, felt like an opportunity for me to express my faith. If I had not already had a foundation of God’s word, it would have been a missed opportunity. We are all presented with opportunities, some we may not be aware of, others we may not feel comftable in expressing, but all of them we need to be equipped for.    Our faith and belief are counter-cultural: it doesn’t agree with the views of today and goes against the perspectives and viewpoints of the society we live in.  As long as you claim to be a Christian, there will be people that dis...
Post a Comment
Read more

God is proud of you

Mark 1:11 “And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” A couple months ago, I had a friend say to me “God is proud of you” and I nearly broke down in tears. How could five words impact me so much? Never hearing or honestly believing it, my perspective changed on a lot of things. We all are our worst critic, and with that comes being very hard on ourselves. Living lives aiming to be perfect, yet sometimes we miss how detrimental that can be: associating our value in our pursuit. I think at times we treat God as a form of teacher or boss: in the sense that if we provide something, whether it’s a high grade or a substantial amount of work, we are deserving of validation. In our lives, this may look like praying a certain number of times, maybe it’s fasting for a couple more hours, or even reading an extra chapter of the bible. Whatever it is, I think we are all guilty of thinking that if we do more, that somehow God’s love for us will be cor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Enduring the Journey

James 1:4   “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”   Recently I had someone tell me that I take too many shortcuts. Because of pride, it’s always uncomfortable for me to accept criticism, especially related to something I wasn’t even aware of. This comment put me in a state of reflection: it made me realise that throughout this year, I’ve been trying to take too many shortcuts. Cutting corners, looking for the easier way out, they’re all mental movements to escape the journey that God was putting me through. In a culture of instant dopamine, we’ve adopted the mindset that everything should be granted to us immediately , however I think God calls us to wait a little longer, because in our wait He may be trying to teach us something much more valuable.   Closely reading the verse , we see that “perseverance” is a work. Like with anything work related, there is a start point and end point. Though perseverance is...
1 comment
Read more