The World Needs You to Grow

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. 

You need milk, not solid food! Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so. (Hebrews 5:12; 6:1-3). 

The world needs you to grow. However, many of us have stayed at the same level of spirituality that we were on when we were children. In fact, we insist on it.  

Sometimes we’re jolted out of our torpor and forced into a growth cycle by a crisis, such as an illness, or powerful loss, or even the threat of illness or loss. But as soon as life evens out, we’ll scurry right back to our childhood set of beliefs and no real growth will have lasted, and then we’ll leave our “religion” in the back of a drawer somewhere that we can take out to look at when there’s time.

Meanwhile, the world slides further into gloomy, confused chaos. If only there were some new insight. If only there were deeper wisdom to share.

It’s there but most of us haven’t found it because we quit growing. We repeat the same litany of thoughts that we heard in church when we were five years old.

There’s so much more to Christ that we could claim for ourselves and then share. There are deeper levels of joy, hope, peace, beauty, wonder, power, love, healing, and wisdom that people could find if we led them through our own personal growth.

When you signed on follow Christ, you signed on to be one of his helpers. You signed on to make things better in this world. Jesus pointed to the people and said, “They are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” And then he prayed for God to send forth reapers for the harvest. (Matthew 9:35-38).

You and I, we are supposed to be the answer to Jesus’ prayer. But to do it, we need to keep growing.

The world needs you to grow. 

Let’s get more specific. Your children need you to grow. So do your grandchildren. And your friends, neighbors, and your colleagues. They need you to grow so that you can help them grow.