365 Days with God - Day 85: Of Spiritual Growth

I'm giving myself a challenge. Read the Bible each day for a whole year, following the ESV Study Guide 1-year plan. Each day, I will post whatever God has revealed to me in His Word, and how it is changing me. A friend of mine once said that nothing has changed her life as much as reading the bible each day - and I'm excited for how this will change me. Join me on an adventure into the heart of God - and day by day, we can learn more about who He is and what that means to us!

- Andy Catts

Day 85, March 15, 2014

Readings: Psalm 85, Exodus 30, Exodus 31, Nehemiah 11:1-36, Nehemiah 12:1-26, 1 Corinthians 3

Think of your life. Everything you've experienced up until this moment. These things are what make you who you are. They have shaped your body, your mind, your perspectives. You would not be who you are today without them. And like the supposed "butterfly effect" - who knows who you would be if any of them were changed? What would be different?

But through all of those experiences you have grown. You have changed. Some for good, and some not so good. But throughout it all, there is the potential for growth. We all started as infants, helpless. We grew to children, still needing to hold our parent's hand, still needing support. As young adults, we began to explore and claim our identity. To establish the core of who we thought we were. And eventually, as parents ourselves, we help to begin the cycle again. To raise new infants, who become children, who become young adults, who become parents.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the growth. (1st Corinthians 3:1-6)

If you believe that we are not only physical people, but spiritual people as well, then it stands to reason that our spiritual body grows - just as our physical body does. Think back again over your experiences. Do you have spiritual parents? People who guided you, raised you, taught you in your faith? Did you grow to new understandings? Did you change over time through your experiences?

What are you doing with it now? We were all given "milk," as it were, as spiritual children. We could not handle anything else. But we (theoretically) have grown. Or should be growing. But this growth is not linear, it is not ever marching along like my age. No, we need to be nurtured and we need to discover, explore and learn like children. We need to grow in our faith. But if we have not been guided, can we expect to be more than infants?

I want to keep this train of thought going, and will write more on the subject - so give some thought to it as well as the days go on. Are you a spiritual infant? Child? Young Adult? Parent? What are the characteristics of each?