Are You Still Growing?
One of the marks of a healthy child is growth. We expect children to change, develop, and mature as the years go by.
But have you ever stopped to think that God designed us to keep growing for our entire lives?
Our growth may look different in each season, but it should never come to a standstill. Some kinds of growth happen almost effortlessly, while others require intentionality, discipline, and a willingness to cooperate with God's work in our lives. (Growing around the middle, for example, usually doesn't require much effort—but that's probably not the kind of growth we're after!)
So let me ask you a few questions.
Are you still growing?
Can you point to ways you've changed over the past year? Are you becoming more like Christ? Or do you feel as though you've plateaued?
And are you growing in a balanced way? Sometimes we pour all of our energy into one area of life while neglecting the others. If your spouse, your children, or your closest friends were asked whether your life is becoming more balanced and mature, what do you think they would say?
These are good questions to revisit from time to time.
Luke 2:52 gives us a beautiful picture of healthy, well-rounded growth:
"Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."
In one simple verse, Luke describes four areas of development:
- Wisdom — intellectual growth
- Stature — physical growth
- Favor with God — spiritual growth
- Favor with others — relational growth
What if we used these same four areas as a simple checkup for our own lives?
The healthiest growth isn't something we manufacture through sheer determination. More often, it's the natural fruit of walking closely with God and responding to what He's doing in us through each season of life. As we cooperate with Him, He quietly shapes us into the people He created us to become.
Here are a few questions to help you reflect:
Intellectual Growth
- What has God been teaching you lately?
- Is there a book, class, podcast, mentor, or new experience that could stretch your thinking?
Physical Growth
- How are you caring for the body God has entrusted to you?
- Is there one realistic change that could improve your strength, flexibility, stamina, or overall health?
Spiritual Growth
- How is your relationship with God these days?
- Are you spending time in His Word?
- Are you becoming more sensitive and responsive to the Holy Spirit's leading?
- Is there a spiritual discipline that God may be inviting you to practice more consistently?
Relational Growth
- Are your relationships becoming healthier, deeper, and more authentic?
- Are you growing in humility, honesty, grace, and vulnerability?
- Is there someone you need to forgive, encourage, invest in, or simply spend more time with?
None of us will grow perfectly in every area all at once. But we should all be growing somewhere.
Perhaps today is a good day to pause and ask the Lord, "Where are You inviting me to grow?" Then take one small step of obedience.
Growth is rarely dramatic. It's usually slow, steady, and almost imperceptible from one day to the next. But over time, those small acts of cooperation with God become a life that increasingly reflects Jesus.
That's the kind of growth that never stops.
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