If you aren’t growing, you are dying.

In church this Sunday, our pastor made the comment that, “If you aren’t growing, you are dying. There is no stasis.” It wasn’t even a part of the sermon, in fact it was a comment on the announcements, but for whatever reason it got me thinking enough to develop a three-part series on personal growth. Quite the way to come back from a week off, eh?

Living things are really interesting. The old saying was that you replace all of the cells in your body every seven years, and while that is not really true, it is a fact that apart from a few special cell types, you and other living things are constantly replacing themselves, dying off and being replaced. A great example of this on a slightly larger scale is growing muscles. When a person is trying to make muscles stronger, they do activities which push those muscles beyond what they are wanting to do. The muscle tissue is damaged in a way and forced to rebuild itself. When it does this, the new tissue is stronger, bigger, and more resilient. It takes time and proper diet to supply the needed nutrients.

Let’s suppose, then, that after doing this for a year, now in incredible shape, you stop working to maintain those muscles. You don’t sabotage yourself, but no work is done to care for the growth that has taken place. What happens? Those built up muscles begin to shrink. The work put into them begins to fade away. This atrophy is natural, stasis is not an option unless work is being done to care, and even then it isn’t truly stasis, but ongoing work and growth.

Our minds and our souls are the same as our bodies. We exercise them, feed them, and help them to grow. Looking particularly at our soul or, as I would rather define it, our relationship with God. God asks us to love Him and one another, and love is an active thing. We show our love in many ways, by using our gifts for the benefit of others and the Kingdom, by learning more about who God is and His desires for your life, or being amongst God’s people, worshiping and being edified.

If we aren’t doing these things, and I would argue all of these things in various balances, then we aren’t growing in our relationship with God. Why is practicing our gifts important? Why do we read and study scripture? Why do we go to Church and worship? Because God gave us these things: talents, revelation, community. When we aren’t in and amongst the good things of God, then we cannot grow in our relationship with Him. And there is no stasis in relationship; if we aren’t growing, then our relationship with God is in atrophy, it is shrinking and wasting away.

As we move forward with other aspects of growth this week, remember this. It is the foundation upon which all other aspects of our life succeed or fail. That is a lot of weight to put on our relationship with God, but it is true and necessary to learn and shape our worldview.

Pax,

Paul Hart Cochran