I had come to a place in my life where I felt like things were good. I felt content in the Lord, confident in my identity, and didn’t feel like I had any hard stuff weighing on me to sift through. It was a great feeling. Then as I came to spend time with the Lord He asked me, “So, you ready to grow more?” My initial reaction went something like this, “Uh, NO!” Things were good, why would God want to poke at it and mess with it? Why couldn’t we just stay where we were and stay there forever? I realized, through this reaction I had, that in my mind, growth equals going through hardship. God challenged this belief by giving me this picture: plants need both rain and sunshine to grow. If rain is the hard stuff, I would say that I’ve experienced a lot of rain for a while now. It has all been very fruitful and I’ve grown a lot from it, but rain is not the only thing that causes growth. Plants also need time to sit in the warm light to grow. God showed me that in a season of sunshine, growth can still be had. Both are needed, but having neither will cause the plant to die. Not growing and sitting in complacency is never an option. Trust me, I’ve tried, it slowly kills you. Growing continuously doesn’t mean drowning in the rain, though. God uses light for growth, too.
