Growth

“Ok, now it’s your turn.”  That is a very common statement in my special education classroom.  My students and I will work and work on something together, and then I step back and let them try it on their own.  Sometimes it means we ‘go back to the drawing board’ – literally – and sometimes it means we rejoice, jump up and down, and try a harder task.

There are also many times I accompany one of my children to the basement with their basket of laundry and watch them put it in the washer and start it up.  The first times I did it myself and explained while they watched, then they did it with prompts, then they did it and I watched; now they just do their own laundry.

Could God do anything he feels like doing for us?  Yes, of course he can.  Is it in our best interest for him to do everything for us and spoon feed us through our lives.  Absolutely NOT!  Where would you be right now if your parents had chose to never put your feet on the floor and just carried you everywhere?  You would be an invalid, literally in a wheelchair with undeveloped leg muscles.  We don’t want our kids to be dependent upon us for the rest of their lives.  We want them to be able to care for themselves, do things on their own, to stretch their own wings and fly into the world…

That is also what God wants for us.  Except God never leaves us on our own.  He is always there, supporting and prompting, and encouraging – as long as we listen.  God gives us challenges, circumstances, issues, and situations to make our way through.  Each one develops us a little farther into what we need to be to carry out God’s work on earth.  He molds us and shapes us, so we grow in faith and trust in him.   He wants us to know that the impossible is possible with him at our side.  Just as we do for our own kids, he lets us do things that he could have easily done on his own so that we grow closer to him and learn to trust him!  Just as we want our kids to become great people, strong and courageous, and able to handle whatever comes next – that’s exactly what God wants for each of his children, that's what he wants for you.

1Corinthians 3:6 – 9 

I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.  It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering.  What’s important is that God makes the seed grow…  you are God’s field.  You are God’s building.