Spring is defined as ” to jump upwards or forwards.” This makes sense when thinking about why the season Spring was named this!
Growth is what we see when Spring arrives each year.
When we go to a home improvement store, we see flowers, trees, all kinds of chemicals, mulch and many products designed to prepare to plant and help aid growth.
When we buy seeds though, or buy a plant or a tree, do we see growth right away? Is the plant or tree the size we want it to be and producing flowers, fruits or vegetables the next day? No, it is not. There is a process involved. We must be patient to see how what we planted, will turn out! I’m not always patient! I like to see results very soon!
Last year, my husband and I planted cherry trees in our yard. I was so looking forward to watching them grow and produce beautiful cherry blossoms! Unfortunately, despite spraying for bugs and deer that come through our yard, three of our trees had nothing left in order to produce these flowers! We did go buy a few more, and hopefully we can watch the trees turn out better this time. I was disappointment though!
There is a step by step process in plants, trees, animals and humans, for growth to happen. The growth that is most visible is physical growth. When I read the Bible, God created mankind for a personal relationship with Him. He made Adam and Eve as adults already, but after they were created, they reproduced! There is more than just physical growth involved though! We also have mental( cognitive), emotional and spiritual growth to consider. Animals also have similar areas of growth( besides spiritual).
What helps us grow though, not only physically? We know that our physical needs are food, exercise, rest and sunlight for example.
Relationships help us grow, learning lessons help us grow and experiences help us grow. Hopefully, as we grow older, we learn and grow from good and bad experiences. We gain some wisdom to help ourselves and others.
When I mentioned the definition of spring, it means to ” jump upward or forward.” It is possible to go backward, when we don’t learn from our experiences. It hurts too, when circumstances happen that we don’t expect, but that does not have to keep us from growing. It is tough when we think we have learned and grown in an area of our lives, but we realize we aren’t there, we haven’t accomplished or “ made it”. God isn’t finished with us yet! He has a purpose in using everything that happens for our good, and often can use it for the good of others too! When we know Christ, we won’t finish growing, until we reach heaven!
We can also become complacent, stagnant and go no further. We become happy where we think we should be and choose not to do anything else to grow. There is such a thing as contentment in our present circumstances with what we have and we can’t do anything more about that, however, we can choose to keep learning, keep seeking, keep growing, jump forward and advance to try and make things better. We can do this with our education, with our jobs, with relationships, our marriage and spiritual knowledge and wisdom growing in our relationship with God. It is good to push ourselves!
Tonight, I return to taking piano lessons! I took them before, but I had to take a break for physical reasons mainly. In this break time, I have practiced and did what I could to learn. Without the experience of letting others teach and allow myself to grow though, I could only go so far! I have to learn from success and failure! I hope that as you grow, in whatever areas you are trying to learn from, that you learn from good experiences and bad, one step at a time.
He will not change, but He gives us the ability to grow and to change!
Great post 😁