Discovering the Real Jesus in Monroe

Here are some mushrooms growing on a log in the woods on the back our our property. Near these mushrooms we have a few tall oak trees.

Mushrooms come up quickly. In contrast, it takes a long time for an oak tree to grow. Mushrooms are fast, oak trees are slow. You can fry mushrooms in a pan and eat them, you can make a table from oak wood. You can knock over a mushroom with a nudge of your toe; it takes machines to dislodge an oak.

Spiritually, and emotionally, some people are mushrooms, some are oaks. Spiritual mushroom-people seem to grow overnight; spiritual oak-people take a lifetime to grow. Mushroom people are weak; and oak people are strong. The truth is that what grows quickly does not last.

In the Christian world I’ve seen people attend one conference and emerge announcing their total transformation. While I believe this could (in principle) happen, and God could rapidly accelerate a person’s spiritual growth, it usually does not happen this way. The life of the real Jesus-follower is a slow-growth thing. Look, for example, at Jesus’ disciples in the 4 gospels. Their spiritual development was definitely not some overnight wonder.

Slow growth produces solid results. Here, for me, are the things that, when done daily, produce long-term transformation of the heart. 

- meditation on Scripture

- study of the Bible

- prayer

-worship as a daily lifestyle

- giving your life away to serve others

- keeping a spiritual journal, which is a record of the activity and voice of God in one’s life

Spend every day, week, and month doing these things and the result, after a lifetime, will be a spiritual oak-person. This is a person who, like the person of Psalm 1, will not wither when the droughts of life comes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 25th, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.