Are You Growing?

I’m sure we can all agree that learning and growing are good things. It would be extremely difficult to survive in the modern world with only a kindergarten education. If we aren’t learning, we cannot grow. If we are not growing, then ultimately, we are dying.

Brethren, we are no longer to be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and up builds itself in love. Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the other Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

Ephesians 4.4-17

Growth is the key to the spiritual life, and it is much more important than what we learned in kindergarten. Saint Paul expects us “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

When we were baptized (or Chrismated as a convert to the faith) we left the world behind. We are expected to no longer live as the world lives. The world uses learning and growth to gain power, wealth and prestige. Christ uses learning and growth to become holy, like God.

Allow me to return to the kindergarten comparison. In kindergarten we learned to count, but if we never learned addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, we would never succeed in the world. Now think of your spiritual life in the Church.

In kindergarten you learned “The Our Father” prayer, but if you never learned to pray the Divine Liturgy you would remain a child. The life of the Church is cumulative. What we learned as children prepares us for what we learn as adult. All of it prepares us for heaven.

Growth is what we do with learning. You can learn math, but you only grow when you use math to better your life. You can learn to pray, but you only grow when you pray. The more you use what you learn, the more you grow. You eventually learn to pray all the time.

You can’t leap from counting from one to ten in kindergarten to university statistics. You miss the vital skills of ‘earlier math’ to be successful in advanced math. The same is true in the life of the Church. You can’t leap from baptism to all-holy elder in one moment. You must grow.

That means you can’t ever be satisfied with your status of spiritual life. Just like you wouldn’t be satisfied remaining in kindergarten you can’t remain a spiritual child. You must always grow. Where you were yesterday is not sufficient for where you are today, nor will it be tomorrow.

Take some time today and ask yourself if you have grown in your faith recently. Are you praying the same way you prayed last year? What about your fasting or your stewardship? Saint Paul wants you to grow into Christ. If you are not growing, you are dying.