So, over the last few weeks the idea of personal inadequacy and Christian growth have been very present in my thinking.
The notion is this: when confronted with some greater or deeper challenge, circumstance or crisis; instead of asking ‘What do I have within me or what has God done to me in the past which will enable me to deal with this?’ we should cultivate the question ‘What am I lacking and what is God intending to grow in me which will enable me to deal with this?’
The first question is indicative of understanding the Gospel basically as a ‘cure.’ ‘God declares me as righteous/fixed me through Jesus at a point in the past and because of that event I should be okay now.’ At some level just about everyone knows this isn’t really true, but that still doesn’t stop a lot of Christians feeling like failures because they aren’t coping in certain situations, or even just generally.
The second question is indicative of understanding the Gospel as a life long process. God certainly and definitively declares us as righteous and also continues to grow us be providing wisdom, grace, strength and patience that we pretty consistently have to recognise isn’t coming from us. We never get the ‘luxury’ of telling God ‘It’s okay, I’ve got this one. I can deal with it because of what you’ve given me in the past.’ Instead each new situation, properly evaluated, leaves us short of our own resources and looking to Him.
In this economy failure is not turning to Him first and success is declaring personal inability straight away. For those of us who have seasons of vague disquiet, times through which we find ourselves quietly hoping for situations to ‘settle down’ to a point where we feel we can manage them on the basis of our existing capacities, this can be liberating if we grasp the notion that God’s reality for us is that season will never come in this life.
We open our hearts and minds to a life long sojourn of God directed growth.
It’s not the path we’d choose, but it’s the path we need.
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