As slow as an amaryllis . . .

For weeks, my amaryllis has been a stalk and a bud. Every day I look for a bloom like this photo, but it isn’t there yet. Worse, I cannot force the plant to do its thing.

Sometimes I feel that way about my spiritual growth. It seems to take forever to develop consistency in spiritual disciplines and in simple obedience to God in the small things, never mind the bigger challenges. I’ve been a Christian for nearly forty years and at times feel like a babe.

I’m reading Truth for Today as a guide to give me Scripture to read each day. Most of the time God speaks to me just from the reference, but sometimes the written devotional is helpful. Today, it is about growing in likeness to Jesus Christ. The author writes:

“Spiritual growth is not some mystical achievement for a select few on a higher spiritual plane. Rather, it is simply a matter of glorifying God by confessing sin, trusting Him, bearing fruit, praising Him, obeying and proclaiming His Word, praying, and leading others to Christ. Those are the qualities every Christian needs in order to mature. When you focus on them, the Spirit of God will change you into the image of Christ, from one level of glory to the next.”

Spiritual disciplines. I’m working at several, but also the discipline of daily exercise and making my body behave. Eating properly is a spiritual discipline also. As Paul said, we need to tell our bodies what to do, not the other way around. By doing so, listening to God and obeying Him becomes easier. Yet some days I feel like that amaryllis stalk — I’m on a holding pattern and nothing is happening. For that, God offers this to me today:

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

This long sentence written by the apostle Paul tells me that I must listen to the people He has gifted into my life. They work to equip me to do God’s will so that I can also build up the body of Christ. I must also aim toward full faith and a deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ. Study, don’t be carried off by some wild teaching, but be immersed in the Bible so that I am not deceived.

Perhaps the crown (or the blossom) of spiritual discipline is learning to speak the truth in love. I still tend to tip one way or the other instead of sharing what God teaches me in the same loving spirit that He uses. Paul reminds me also that each believer is part of one body. What one does affects all of us, so as I do my share, the entire body will grow and be built up.

Yet it seems to take so long. I must confess that I am as impatient with my own slow growth as I am sometimes dismayed by the lack of bloom in the lives of others. However, God urges me to keep on with the discipline and He will produce the growth.

Every day I am watching that odd, and so-far barren, stalk with a single bud at the top. It is a good reminder to me that growth is God’s doing. I can plant the bulb, water it, and place it where it gets light and the warmth from our winter sun, but it grows and blooms only because God is at work. Further, I cannot control the speed; I can only anticipate that one day it will be glorious.