Grow by Cooperating with God - September 16, 2013

Ecclesiastes 3:1
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

As you grow to spiritual maturity, there are several ways to cooperate with God in the process --

Believe God is working in your life even when you don't feel it. Spiritual growth is sometimes tedious work, one small step at a time. Expect gradual improvement.

There are seasons in your spiritual life, too. Sometimes you will have a short, intense burst of growth (springtime) followed by a period of stabilizing and testing (fall and winter).

Keep a notebook or journal of lessons learned. This is not a diary of events, but a record of what you are learning. Write down the insights and life lessons God teaches you about him, about yourself, about life, relationships, and everything else.

The reason we must relearn lessons is that we forget them. Reviewing your spiritual journal regularly can spare you a lot of unnecessary pain and heartache.

We are often in a hurry when God isn't. You may feel frustrated with the seemingly slow progress you're making in life. Remember that God is never in a hurry, but he is always on time. He will use your entire lifetime to prepare you for your role in eternity.

It's like a workout. In terms of cardio, you can do high-intensive or do interval training, but turns out that interval running is a lot more effective (intervals being short bursts of sprint or jogging with some walking in between). In the same way, it's good to keep pressing forward and to keep pace, but to take a little breather in between. It's been stressed before through a lot of devos, but the growing in steps has many advantages over growing in huugeee leaps. As for the seasons, take advantage of the times you feel like you're growing fast. In my own life, I feel like I'm in a rapid growth period, but I know following there will be a time where things start to slow down. When things start to move slower, it's a good idea to compound the recent growth and make room for even more. So all in all, trust in God to handle your growth instead of trying to take control of it yourself.

This devo reminds me of one of our Saturday practice with Dan when he asked us how far we have gone with God. When each of us were sharing, I am really amazed at all the gradual improvement we have been making so far.
So I was really thinking about this when I had a very loooooong and serious discussion with a couple of people.
I remember mentioning that For a while up until that point, I have been always impatient and wondering why I haven't seen any action with God lately, I felt frustrated and thought that maybe God was upset and wanted me to change something. As I was sharing this, I think I really did get many questions that I've had for a long time answered.
The main point that I want to share with you guys is that although it could be frustrating, God breaks us down and builds us up stronger and he rids of all the cracks we may have created. Also, another answer I got from him is that I've been feeling slow because he wants to make sure that every detail is done properly. So slow and steady is where I think he wants me to grow.
Your growth pace may be different but I'm just sharing what I have experienced and learned this week.
Honestly, these past few years have been the most difficult for me. I also didn't feel that same glow/vibe that I felt in my heart that I had a a child. There were so many questions that were not yet answered like, "how come I feel that I'm not seeing any progress and I'm going farther away?"
I knew that he had some sort of purpose for me and I knew that it had to come someday but then what do I do with the time given to me while I'm waiting for my call?
That's what really bothered me for a long time.

But now when I think of it, I had that time for me to have a break and start to become more spiritually independent and a stronger individual. I still don't know what plan God has been preparing for me but I know that in the meantime, I'll be preparing until he feels that I'm ready.

Well, this is a longer devo than usual but I felt that I should just share that with my fam...
Goodnight!
~Audrey~

This devo for me really ties back to the past set of devotionals which stressed the importance of long-run and steady growth.  In order for us to grow however, we must follow God's ultimate plan and cooperate with Him.  Since He is in control over everything we should put our trust in Him.

God sees and knows what we don't know. Even though we feel that a process may seem aggravatingly slow, God is working in perfect time, to nurture us to help us grow spiritually. I think during these times of seeing little to no progress in our spiritual lives and our journey, we have to trust God, and understand that some things take time and that God allows things to take time for a greater purpose and for a greater reason.
The time that it takes for us to spiritually grow in numerous ways is something that I feel is necessary. Although it may seem unnecessary at those times in our lives when our faith seems to be slowing down incredibly, we have to trust that it's meant to teach us something, and to help us learn something that we otherwise couldn't have known, through the patience that will develop through this waiting.
We have to trust that our patience and our waiting will not be in vain, and our progress will be shown to us ultimately when we wait in times where our faith seems nearly stagnant.
Trust in God's perfect timing.

14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:14

25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:25

I think that the seasons metaphor might explain why sometimes we are frustrated that we don't see any substantial spiritual growth.
A plant doesn't determine the season, the season determines the plant.
In the spring it is easy to grow and you might be able to see yourself growing, but in the winter it is pretty much useless or at least very difficult to try to grow as a plant, and most of the plants that grew in spring wither away.
But a tree is different than many other plants because it can survive during the winter and thrive in the springtime. It is obviously more effective to grow from a point rather than to grow from ground zero again, making trees able to grow to huge sizes. However, it is also important to note that trees grow slowly, and it takes many years for it become that large tree.

So basically, as this devo says, there is a time for growing, and there is a time for testing and stabilizing.
And while it is important to grow in the spring, it's more important to maintain it and keep it alive.

Rather than studying for a long period of time, it's better to study in short increments with frequent, but small breaks. With God, sometimes we try and see how far we could go and how fast we could do it. That being said, we tend to forget the small details that truly count. To achieve a strong healthy relationship with God, we have to ensure that we're getting closer with Him rather than running on the spot. Making the same mistakes tells us that we're not picking up on the errors that we've made. We're choosing not to recognize what's in front of us and yet we want to go further rather than perfecting the basics. Reflecting back is fundamental towards our journey of faith. History is bound to repeat itself if we aren't going take in what happened. I guess its true when they say that we can't succeed without failing, only when we recognize what we did wrong. And that initial step forces us to be humble.

Growing in small increments is better than growing in bursts. IF we grow throughout time, that means we are experiencing many different things over a period of time and we are feeling things and taking it slow. While on the other hand, if we were to grow lets say in a week or so, of course you will feel it but it is easier for us to fall away from God because we grew so quickly and haven't experienced all the things.
I don't know if I'm making sense right now but what I mean is that it is never good to try and force something when its not supposed to be forced. The journey of Christ is a life long journey so why are some people so eager to finish it so early?

My life isn't super intense or crazy right now. There's not a lot of miracles or amazing acts of God happening atm. It's good to know that even when life seems to be moving so slowly and without change- God it still working to bring us closer to him. We can't take this message as an excuse to ignore God and tell ourselves it's fine, though. There's a difference between trusting God is working in your life even when you can't feel it and ignoring God while telling yourself it's fine because you're still growing as a Christian.

I remember this verse when I was doing my Saturday devos; "there is always a season"
Even in the season, there was a season or growth, and quiet. Why shouldn't that apply to us as well? God looks for constant growth, not one that burns for a while, then dies away. Our faith as well as our worship, should be like that. God works in us, no matter how quiet it may be. He's constantly in our lives, every minute. So have faith and take the leap!

Something that sort of just clicked in me while reading this one was the idea of "Growing with God, by just Growing WITH God."

Growing with the guidelines he has given with the realization that he is 100% willing to help us attain this goal through any means whatsoever. He made the goals achievable, but often times, we sort of go like: "OK, God! I gotchu." And then go off to work independently. Mmmmm, it's sort of the same as having a coach say to you "Go score 10 shots in this game!" and then you say, "Gotchu!" but never really ask how to go about it, or follow the given strategy whatsoever.

God's willing to help, so we don't have to just take whatever work and finish as homework exclusively. We have his help at our disposal and we are free to ask for it with the right intention and direction.