Growing is difficult. It doesn't matter if it is a family that's growing, physically growing, spiritual growth, or a church growing - growing can be painful. I'm discovering more and more that change is inevitable, but change can hurt. Even when change is good, change is difficult. As a father and husband who is about to have another child, I'm learning about the pains of growth. As a follower of Jesus who is wanting to go deeper with my Lord, I'm learning about the pains of growth. As a man who is training for a full marathon, I'm learning about the pains of growth. As a pastor of a church that is thriving and seeing people come to faith in Christ, I'm learning about the pains of growth. We all want to grow. What we tend to forget is that to grow means to change, and change is the thing we most resist in our lives. We can choose to never change, but we essentially choose to never grow when we make that choice.
How about you? What areas of your life right now are you experiencing growing pains? Do you resist the change needed in order to grow or do you adjust to change? Resistance is futile. We fight harder to keep things as they are because we live with a false sense of security. The truth remains: anything worth doing or becoming will require change, which always brings the pains of growth.
I often find I most resist change when I have the wrong perspective about things. Sometimes I can't see beyond the way the change impacts me to see how it improves things for others, or paves the way for better things for me in the future. When we get too stuck to ourselves, our life, our way, change is going to hurt more than it needs to.
ReplyDeleteWell said Chad
ReplyDeleteA false since of security is what most people cling to. The truth is all of us are one event away from losing everything. All we really have is this relationship with the living God. Sometimes, when we put that into perspective, we relax a bit. Sometimes, it makes us cling even tighter to that false security.
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