Sunday Special: Spiritual growth.

I've been through a period of spiritual dryness recently. I haven't been praying with my heart. I've been distracted and caught up in the daily troubles that I simply did not get any opportunity to slow down and be with the Lord.

I have questioned whether I have actually grown spiritually in the last few months at all. Have I advanced on the path to holiness? It definitely doesn't feel like it. It feels that I am standing still, even going backwards. But surely this is just the result of my current spiritual state. Surely?

The thing about growing in anything, in particular in growing spiritually, is that the growth might be hardly perceptible. At times it might even feel like going backwards rather than going forwards.

I reflected on my growth as a teacher over the last couple of years. I had a few wow moments when I really thought 'I'm getting a hang of it at last'. But most of the time, my progress was slow, incremental and hardly visible. Like the ability to build relationships with my pupils. I've moved miles since I've started teaching, though from one day to another I could barely see any progress.

If everybody still had to grow their own food, I think we would find it much easier to accept that growth might not be perceptible, but it's definitely happening and we just need to be patient. Trust is the most important component of growth. We need to trust God that He is doing his glorious and invisible work. We need to trust ourselves, that our choices bring us closer to who we are meant to be.

Spiritual growth is imperceptible and my individual and personal growth will look completely different than yours. That's part of the challenge and of the beauty of it. You plant the seed by inviting God to enter your life and your spiritual growth will take its course which in all likelihood will be totally different from the growth in the life of somebody else. Because we are all different and God leads us on different paths. Today it might feel that everybody else has such a beautiful soul while you are still stuck with your ugly self. But for as long as you constantly turn to Christ, day after day, you will grow closer to Him and his light will light up all of our dark places, making you grow in the beauty of the child of God.