Reflection on Spiritual Growth

In the book, Deepening Your Effectiveness, authors Glover and Levy use the image of a swimmer as a metaphor for spiritual growth. Before we begin our relationship with Jesus, we are standing on the shoreline. Our initial response to Jesus is like "dipping our toes in the water." Then, we begin to wade in. Eventually, we swim out into deeper water.

To live as persons without history is to be an endangered species, for the present becomes the thinnest of lines separating "not yet" from "too late."
-W. Paul Jones

By Mary Hood

My spiritual growth began as a four year old, sitting in a little chair behind our Presbyterian Sunday School teacher who played the piano while we sang Jesus Loves Me and This Little Light. I may not have known all the words but that didn't stop me from singing. During my years at home and in college, I attended church regularly, but as I think back, there was very little spiritual growth. There certainly was a relationship with Jesus but it found me "standing on the shoreline" (quote from the illustration in Sunday's bulletin).

Eldon, my husband, had open heart surgery in February 2009. Recovery was very slow and one evening (the only time I stayed overnight) something went wrong and I was out in the hall yelling, "Help! Help!" A doctor rushed in. "Code blue" was heard and a nurse took me down to the waiting room and told me to call my pastor. All kind of panic thoughts were going through my head but, as I waited in that room, I felt a sense of peace that whatever happened, Jesus was there with me. During the next week I thought a lot about what had happened that night and how it affected my relationship with Jesus. That experience was the beginning of a spiritual growth for me. I realized what a friend I had in Jesus - that He would be with me through the good and the bad. My prayer life has been strengthened and I find that I am more at peace with myself. Hopefully, I am beginning to wade away from the shoreline.

This week will you set aside time to reflect on your spiritual journey? Can you recall a time in your life when you experienced a "spiritual growth spurt?" Have you taken the plunge or are you still tiptoeing through shallow water? What have been occasions for deepening your commitment to Jesus?