Growth Trajectory
We each have this inner desire to grow and develop as human beings.
Most, if not all of us, want to grow. In fact, we've been created to grow in life. God has given us the capacity to develop as human beings over a period of time. It's how God naturally designed us to be. I see this all the time with my son who's in the toddler phase. He's learning so many new things so quickly. At some point in the past, he couldn't even say a single word. Then one day, he could say a word or two. Now, he can put a few words together to issue a command to papa (and papa must obey or else). It's amazing. He's growing every single day.
We each have this inner desire to grow and develop as human beings. We may not always adhere to this desire to grow, but it's present is us nonetheless. Sometimes, we may even refuse to grow any longer. This is a choice that some of us make. But the capacity to develop is available to us if we want it.
We also choose to grow in our spiritual lives. Just like other aspects of the human person, we can develop our spirituality. We develop it by learning to listen to God and to obey in faith what He says to us. The spiritual disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, worship, and contemplation help us on this quest to trust and obey God. These spiritual activities are practices that develop our spiritual lives each and every day.
But just like other parts of our lives, we can choose to ignore our spiritual lives and fail to develop it over time. However, you do have the opportunity every single day to grow your relationship with God once again. This opportunity will always be available to you.
One of the things I've noticed about a person's growth and development is that it never actually looks like a "straight line" upward. Who goes through life without challenges and setbacks? I don't know anybody like this. There are times when we try and we fail. We sometimes lose progress. We may take a few steps backwards. Failure is part of being a human being after all (though we admit that it is unpleasant at times).
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Hopefully, we won't experience such drastic swings in our progress. I doubt our growth and development looks like this graph below. We're never really having to start back at zero.
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Instead, I believe our growth as human beings looks more like this:
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We may take a few steps back because of a mistake or a particular situation in life. But we won't actually go back to zero. From where we failed, we can get back up and continue developing some more. Then at some point in time, we might encounter another setback. But it won't take us back that far. We can then continue developing again. So, although there are points of failure in our journey (which is common and normal), generally-speaking, the growth trajectory is steadily going up. I think this presents a more realistic view of our growth and development as human beings.
So, don't beat yourself up whenever you fail or whenever a particular situation in life takes you a few steps back. You can overcome them with the power of the Spirit and carry on. Your growth as a person will slowly but surely take place over time.
Barnabas the Monastic
Servant of Christ. Husband. Dad. Modern Monastic. I have a wild ambition in life: get as close to the Lord Jesus Christ as I can while on earth. I explore and integrate ancient Christian monk wisdom in modern everyday life. Lives in Canada.
