Let it Grow

I wonder what I’ll be like at the end of the road called my life. I have several examples of what not to be but the question is how do I avoid becoming that which I abhor? I see dead people walking around. People that say they love the Lord but hate their brother and sisters, their husbands and wives. I don’t mean just get angry I mean hate. Years of stuffing it down inside so that the outside looks pretty as a picture. But the inside is just festering. I think Jesus said something about both of those things and I pray for mercy in peoples lives.

The church has done a pitiful job of teaching people how to grow up, how to pursue truth in every area of life, how to live in the midst of relationships. The list is endless of the things that we have not been taught to do biblically.

I just hate being on the receiving end of childish behavior from those who are supposed to be grown ups. My children were amazed the other day to find out that their great grandmother was 14 when she got married. She was 14 but compared to the generations that followed her she was probably 45 in grown up years where as I know some older than 45 who act as if they are 14.

The depth of Christianity in the lives that I am entwined in is shallow at best if not bone dry, kind of like the rivers and lakes and ponds that I’ve seen on my journey this week. If something doesn’t change soon we are heading for a drought in the real world. The fields are dry. The ponds are down at least a foot. The rivers are lower than I’ve seen them in a long time. But none of those things come close to the drought of maturity in the church and in the culture. We are parched beyond measure. It sickens me; it really does. It breaks my heart because I see the pabulum that passes for meat (or even a good healthy vegetarian meal) and it’s like people are eating ground up cardboard mixed with sewer water or something.

The reality is that if you are in the Christian faith you should be growing up, no you will be growing up. You will be maturing. You will be producing the fruits of the spirit. If not then some thing is wrong, very wrong.

When I say these things I am not looking at the culture at large. I am simply looking at relationships and families. One of the things that maturity in the faith is to bring forth is unity. I can’t say when that began to disappear in our families in this culture but it was before I was born. Children can’t wait to get away from their parents but the blame is not just on the children there’s not much in the life of the parents that draws the children to them. Money certainly cannot do it. It has to be the fruits of the spirit. The unity of the family is not about flesh and blood. Being flesh of my flesh doesn’t unify anyone. Ask Eve how much the flesh of their first sons kept them together. Blood isn’t anything. Spirit is everything.

I pray that in my latter years that the fruits of the Spirit will be blooming at such a massive volume that it will cause my children to want what I want, to be like I am. I don’t need them to move closer to me I need us to be unified in a single calling, in a single faith, in a single mission of advancing the kingdom of God. That doesn’t come from the words of my mouth. It comes from how I treat my wife and kids, live my life, press on into the kingdom.

I long for unity to be restored starting in my own family with my wife and my kids. I don’t think, at least for me, that there could be a better witness against the darkness than that.

As Eric Clapton once wrote:

Standing at the crossroads, trying to read the signs
To tell me which way I should go to find the answer,
And all the time I know, Plant your love and let it grow.

Let it grow, let it grow,Let it blossom, let it flow.
In the sun, the rain, the snow,Love is lovely, let it grow.


Grace and Peace,

Brad