The Risk of Turning Back

The growth of every plant follows a certain pattern. By studying it, we can understand how much time each species requires to reach its highest development and bear abundant fruit. By studying this subject, we can accelerate this growth or help our plants produce as much fruit as possible. Many different fertilizers have been invented and many processes discovered for this purpose. We do not know how fruit develops and ripens. But we can observe it and even identify a certain sequence. Yet it is not within our power to give plants growth.

Spiritual growth differs from the growth of plants in that any one of us can stop growing forever. We can also return to a previous stage and continue living a full life there. God cannot force us to grow, but He can create certain conditions for this growth and extend His invitation to continue onward and rise higher. He does not insist that I respond to this voice, but He always remains near, encouraging me through His inspiration and sending into my life people who have traveled this path and can explain what is happening to me.

Ignorance of all these spiritual processes can have disastrous consequences for me if I consider such a path abnormal and begin to become disappointed in what is happening to me. We do not become better as we grow spiritually. But we move to a special level of relationship with God, where He becomes closer to us than He was before.

The more I grow in Christ and in my faith, the more I understand how sinful I am and how greatly I need the Savior at every step of my life. Even when I attain righteousness in the eyes of Heaven, I will not consider myself righteous, because I see another law in my members that pulls me downward and compels me continually to make important decisions and resist every kind of temptation that crashes into my life.

But spiritual growth is not my invention; it is God’s plan for each of us. At the right time, He leads us to the next steps and invites us to step higher so that, at this new height, I may leave behind everything that pulls me downward and hinders my further growth. We do not invent stages of faith and stages of growth for ourselves. The Lord knows when and how to create the next crisis in our lives in order to destroy all the dangerous stereotypes that can become a trap for us and cast us into the abyss of lawlessness.

The Lord permits us, in one way or another, to experience difficult times—times of darkness and struggle. And He teaches us in advance to trust Him in simple things and in every little detail during this dark time. Blessed is the one who recognizes and understands the constancy of God’s presence in his life.

If someone believes that the highest stage of love is only for specially chosen people who somehow rise above us in their growth, he does not understand the essence of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth places upon me a greater responsibility before God for the light I have received and for living in that light than rests upon those to whom something has not yet been revealed. And this responsibility remains with me until death.

I will give an account for every ray of light the Lord sent into my life. I will be shown when and at what moment I took hold of the helping hand extended to me, and when I turned my back on God and refused to continue into the darkness to which He gently invited me.

The Lord knows how disobedient and stubborn we can be, how much we love comfort, and how difficult it sometimes is to persuade us to take the next step. Therefore, He does not leave us alone, even when we prefer to turn back, live in familiar surroundings, and engage in our ordinary ministry.

Spiritual growth is not a matter of leaving sin or remaining in it, but rather of gaining a deeper understanding of God’s character and allowing God to restore that very character within me—the likeness of Christ.

In this transformation, the Lord encounters many obstacles in my human nature: my sins, my will, my stereotypes, and my distorted understanding of truth.

All these things can slow my growth or kill me spiritually if I refuse to accept help and walk the path along which God plans to lead me.

If we look at the church as a whole and decide to evaluate the lives of those who have been in the church since childhood—especially for several generations—or who hold some high administrative position, we may gain the impression that the stages of faith are something invented by people who have nothing better to do. But this is not so.

Any position I hold in a spiritual organization, any ministry I perform, or any office I occupy in the church does not mean that, in order to do this work, I had to grow spiritually to the highest stage of faith. I may be an excellent evangelist, preacher, or some other kind of minister, yet at the same time hold on to the stage of success with all my strength and under no circumstances enter the darkness into which the Lord invites me.

I may memorize the entire Bible, but this will not add to my spiritual growth. I may have a special talent for bringing new people into the church, teaching Sabbath School lessons, or creating a special missionary project. But such things do not tell God that I have grown spiritually. I am simply using the opportunities available to me correctly and trying through all of this to carry out God’s work.

I may become a popular Christian blogger and gather tens of thousands of followers who admire my ability to speak beautifully about spiritual matters and convince people that the teaching of our church is true. But this will not raise me even a millimeter higher in spiritual growth, because God has established His own criteria for growth by which He seeks to nurture each of us.

At the same time, I may be an ordinary church member with an insignificant ministry, yet experience one crisis after another, hold firmly to the hand of Jesus, and overcome the next obstacle together with Him. My relationship with God is sometimes invisible to other people, and the older I become in Christ, the fewer people understand me. But this situation does not frighten me. I know in Whom I have believed and Who is leading me.

When hearing about the stages of faith, any uninformed person can invent his own criteria for evaluating the spiritual growth of other people, as well as his own. I may not fit his ideas of growth and, accordingly, may not be accepted by him in my statements and reflections about it.

My lack of understanding of where the Lord is leading me and where I must ultimately arrive may cause me to fear the trials ahead. And the enemy of the soul will certainly seek to use this vulnerability to stop my growth and persuade me to return to the place where everything is clear and wonderful.

We can clearly see similar stages of growth in the life of the patriarch Abraham. When God called him to go, Abraham believed that the Lord was calling him to follow this path and would never leave him. Yet the choice and consent always remain within a person’s power.

1. Please read Genesis 12:1; Deuteronomy 8:2; Psalm 73:23–24; Proverbs 3:5–6; Ecclesiastes 7:8; Isaiah 30:21; 42:16; Jeremiah 6:16; Zechariah 4:6; Romans 8:14; 12:2; 1 Corinthians 3:6–7.

2. What other Bible verses came to your mind?

3. What did you understand?

4. Do you realize that spiritual growth may be accompanied by inner crises and struggles?

5. Are you ready, like Abraham, to follow God even when you do not understand His ways?

6. What is more important to you: spiritual comfort or spiritual growth?

7. How do you respond to spiritual crises—with trust or with murmuring?

8. What is hindering your spiritual growth the most today?

9. Is it possible for a believer to hide from God in ministry?

10. Are you able to hear God’s voice amid the busyness of life?

11. Are you ready to acknowledge your spiritual weakness before God?

12. What happens to you when God destroys your familiar ideas?

13. Are you trying to appear more spiritually mature than you truly are?

14. Do you allow God to lead you where you do not want to go?