To Growth

Growth is not linear but a winding path of attention before, behind and all around you.

Sheralyn Bateman

This is, perhaps, the most common teaching point I have taught this semester. I have said it to students who doubt their improvements, who feel like they’ve stepped back in skill instead of forward and also to those who believe they won’t ever need to turn around and revisit who they used to be.

I have also been saying this to myself as I continually learn that the path of growth does not always show in obvious ways. For me, it has looked like practicing boundaries and then forgetting how to maintain them or revisiting things I used to enjoy that I thought I was done with. We are complex creatures who live in a society that teaches us that the only way is forward. That if we even just turn around or pause for a moment we will miss an opportunity. I remember going to a church that told me that if I wasn’t moving forward I was moving back. How much pressure is that?!? I highly disagree. In the Kingdom of God I am often reminded that our reality is actually anti-action towards being better. Instead, it is an ever twisting and turning path through circumstances and choices that teach us either something about ourselves or about God. ALL of this is important to growing and ALL of it presents an opportunity to grow closer to God, that is, inward and not forward. If you doubt my statement, check your Bible. You will see human after human live through ups, downs and all arounds. You will see an entire nation travel the same path for 40 years. You will see a young King anointed about 15 years before ever sitting on the throne – not to mention he was chased around the land during that entire time to prevent him from ever stepping foot in the kingdom at all. You will see a prophet who spoke boldly for the Lord cause an entire nation to come back to God only to run, hide and rest when his life was threatened soon-after. This is how it goes. This is our way of life in God’s Kingdom. As we look to the left to see one thing we must also remember to turn to the right later on. In order to really know who we are now don’t we also need to understand our history going back? All of this tells me that my growth cannot be tracked by steps forward but by a deeper look and enjoyment of life and ideas all around me. This is how I know God is with me and this is how I learn to follow Him wherever He may take me.

I am glad.

Let’s breathe a collective sigh of relief that our life is not meant to be tracked on a ladder. No, our life is meant to be experienced and even more so, traversed like a wild adventure through un-marked terrain. Let’s turn to the left, turn to the right and swivel all around us as we take in the grand view of what makes us, us. Let’s look for the ways we have learned by looking back. Let’s focus in one area as we allow another area to lose focus. Let’s not be concerned about what we lose as we gain something else. After all, growth is not building one step on another but looking across a vast horizon.

This season I hope to remember this and continue to remind others of this as schedules pick up and we are surrounded by choices.

• Choose to grow and follow His lead
• Choose to let go of tracking your growth through numbers, lines, graphs and measuring sticks
• Choose to be in community, practice self awareness, think deep and listen deeper
• Ultimately, choose to grow all around and take in the view as you go whatever direction is next

Merry Christmas