Growing is hard. It just is.
Flowers and grass make it look easy don’t they? Throw out a few seeds and days later you see the peach fuzz that will become your lawn and the sprout that will soon beautify your garden.
It seems almost unfair, doesn’t it?
If only growing was that easy for us. So natural. So fast. So visible.
What we don’t realize is that once growing was easy and natural for us, too. Just ask our mothers who said we grew like weeds right before their eyes. That time seemed to warp from the time of our birth, bundles of potential all pink and tiny, to the time time we left the safety of that home to set out on our own, full grown and brimming with dreams.
Natural. Fast. Visible.
Unlike the flowers and grass though, we have minds and souls that need to continue to grow long after our bodies’ growth plates have closed.
This continued growth requires some things that don’t come so naturally. They’re not so fast or visible, either.
It requires us to do more than we have up to this point. It means we might have to go outside of our own box and dare to look at things from a different perspective. Part of us has to choose to change and develop.
Diligence and intentionality become key words in our vocabulary.
To keep this growth of soul and mind going we have to have motivation.
We’ve got to know our WHY for growing.
What is the point of it all? This is so essential. Otherwise, we will lose steam and eventually give up when the going gets tough. Ongoing diligence and intentionality require knowing why we are doing what we’re doing.
Todays hard thing, number eight, for me is this: To examine my “WHY” and define it well enough for me to look back and reference it when I don’t feel like growing. When I want to sit in my sameness. When discouragement or failure has left me wondering if it’s worth the hassle. When diligence and intentionality are weary.
My WHY should always, always, always accompany my HOW (am I going to do this) and my WHAT (am I going to do) in everything that I do, and especially in my areas of necessary growth.
Here’s an example:
I believe God is asking me to take on a writing project this year. This is a WHAT – a specific area of growth. My first inclination is to figure out the HOW (am I going to do this) and just start. But my WHY has to come first.
My WHY is the motivator, the reason and the purpose.
To find that WHY, I’m going to look at two things:
- What God asks of me in the broad sense – i.e. why I was put on this planet in the first place.
- How God has gifted and impassioned me and how I can grow and use those gifts and passions in order to accomplish #1.
So that’s it for today. This is my “thing eight” in A Year Of Growth. I’ll check in tomorrow and let you know what I come up with through listening to Jesus, reading His words and asking Him to give me the wisdom I so need.
– How about you? What is your WHY for growing and stretching beyond your current “limits”?
– Why did God put you on this earth?
– How has He gifted you to carry that out in the way best suited for just you?
James 1:4-5 – Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
Additional reading – Matthew 25 – The Parable of the Talents
