Growing Pains

[Read time: 13 minutes] Knowing your aptitudes, tendencies, and interests will help you become more effective in life–especially in God’s kingdom–and you will feel more satisfied and fulfilled when using your abilities. Yet that does not imply you will live happily ever after. If you still have a sinful mindset, it adamantly opposes everything God intends to do and conflicts with your godly nature. This will produce a wide variety of feelings, but they are only symptomatic of what is going on inside you.

Though God superceded your sinful nature when He redeemed you, you will have residual sinful habits, thoughts, and ways to contend with until you graduate from life. As you continue to develop spiritually, you will discover new problem areas to address. Because you have known no other existence, you may not see the inherent perversity of everything that was so natural to your sinful nature. God is fully aware of this and He will bring these matters to your attention when you can handle them. Each time He does, you have a new opportunity to put a leftover from your sinful nature to death. You can be confident, however, that God will give you the power to do whatever He asks; you supply the willingness. Putting off everything related to your old nature is a vital part of the growth process.

The flip side of the process is putting on the new nature. God is in the role of mentor, grooming you to serve and raising you to be like Him. All change creates some level of stress. For example, even pleasant changes require learning new habits and this can produce stress until the new ways become second nature. So as God mentors you, you will experience some discomfort, some stress, some displeasure. These are primarily reactions of your old mindset that is based on your previous sinful ways.

Years ago there was a movie about a young boy who wanted to learn karate for self-defense. He found an elderly man who was an expert in karate, who agreed to teach him. The old man began by having the boy do a variety of jobs for him–wax his car, paint his house, and so on. In addition, the old man insisted he do them specific ways: he could only use up-and-down motions with one hand and rotating motions with the other; always the same movements, whatever the task. This went on for what seemed forever to the boy and he became frustrated and angry. He wasn’t learning karate. He felt like the old man’s slave and he almost quit several times. But when the time was right, the old man explained two points that are extremely relevant to our topic.

1. The student has to trust his mentor and do whatever he says. Because the student is ignorant and inexperienced, he must accept what the expert says and obey him.
2. The student must develop and practice basic skills until they become second nature; automatic reflexes. The seemingly unending drill of simple, senseless repetition will develop traits or habits that are critical to future responsibilities.

These two points are directly applicable to the Father-child relationship you have with God, and they help explain much of what God has you do. And like the boy who wanted to learn karate, you will frequently need to lay aside your expectations, your presumed rights, and your preconceived ideas. Trust and obey; there is no other way. If that sounds like an old hymn, it was meant to.

The purpose of this study is to help you identify your God-given character and begin using it the way He intended. We recognize that doing so will produce feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment. We also need to recognize, however, that using your God-given abilities in a God-honoring manner will not always make you feel good. In fact, you need to prepare yourself psychologically and emotionally for some growing pains. You know what growing pains are: those unpleasantries and discomforts related to becoming a more mature and responsible member of the community.

A young person typically wants all the benefits of adulthood without any of the responsibilities. You may remember wanting frequent access to the family car of your choice without the responsibility of taking out the trash or cleaning up your room. Or, how often as an adult have you wished you could be a child again, so someone else would make all the decisions and take care of you? Part of the pain of growing up is accepting the responsibilities of adulthood. The same is often true of growing up in God’s kingdom.

It is my experience that periods of discomfort often indicate potential for growth. As I explained earlier, one of my spiritual gifts is teaching, and for a while I was unable to teach. Boy, was I miserable! I eventually learned that my skills were to serve me, not drive me. They are to be available when I need them, not demand that I satisfy their motivation. Another of my gifts is administration and it has taught me that using my skills to serve God often will reveal problems caused by my old way of thinking. When that happens, I have opportunities to improve my attitude. For me, recognizing the process of development and maturity, and the source of my misery–that is, my sinful perspective–helped me deal with the feelings and go on with life.

So we go back to the two points about the mentor/student relationship: trust and obedience. Trust is an essential ingredient in any healthy relationship. In fact, without trust, the relationship quickly becomes adversarial. Jesus repeatedly emphasized trust in His relationship with His followers. He used the analogy of sheep trusting the shepherd (John 10:1-18). He honored those who had childlike attributes of trust and dependence on their parents (Matt. 18:1-5). He said not to be concerned about defending yourself or worried about providing for yourself because your heavenly Father will take care of you (Matt. 5:38-48; 6:25-34). All these attitudes are based on trust.

We are to trust God to do what is best for us (see Rom. 8:28). This includes caring for us and protecting us, of course, but also developing and mentoring us. Like players on a team who have to trust the coach’s skill and judgment, we need to let God show us what to do and when to do it.

In our culture, we honor sports figures who are highly skilled and independent enough to decide for themselves what to do. We get all excited when they intuitively change the play and break loose to score against their opponent. We glorify people who reject structure and authority, taking matters into their own hands to overcome a serious problem on their own. We call these people heroes and use them as role models, but as Christians, we need to recognize the source of such behavior and attitudes: sinful human nature. Every one of us wants to throw off all restraints, do what we want, become outrageously successful, and win everybody’s praise. Admit it, doesn’t that sound great? Sure it does, because those were the self-centered desires of your old sinful nature. That is the stuff self-indulgent fantasies consist of. Ignore the boss or coach, break the rules, and win the big one.

It should be no surprise that is exactly the opposite of godly nature. God says, “Trust me. Let me lead. Let me decide.” The only way you can trust God is to reject all expressions of self-centeredness and humble yourself before Him. Repentance is the key to trust. We absolutely must change the way we think.

Does God want you to identify and use your skills effectively? Of course, He does. He equipped you with specific aptitudes or skills, gave you personality tendencies that help you use your aptitudes, and made you interested in certain types of activities. He also gave you the ability to feel satisfied and fulfilled when you use your skills well. This serves as an indicator, to help you know when you are being effective.

The young boy in our analogy, who wanted to learn karate, had to practice certain basics until they became second nature to him. He chafed at the discipline, at all the seemingly irrelevant tasks he had to perform and at the unending delay. In his ignorance, he despised having to practice the basics, but his mentor knew he would never reach his goal unless he changed certain behaviors.

So it is with your mentor. He knows you will never amount to anything worthwhile–based on His standards, that is–unless you make certain fundamental changes. Which is precisely why His instruction manual, the Bible, places such emphasis on repentance, changing the way you think. If you consider your significant experiences and how God used them to mold you, you begin to realize how much emphasis He puts on your attitudes, your standards, your priorities, your values, your perspective–the basics. He knows the value of true repentance, so He keeps putting you into situations that bring these basics to your attention so you can make the necessary changes and learn to use the correct methods. So you get to practice and practice the new attitudes, repeatedly adjusting your standards, values, and priorities. And you continuously practice using your new perspective so you can begin seeing things God’s way. You may think you have learned a lesson and then you find yourself going through it again.

In fact, you will never stop practicing the basics. Ask anyone who is highly skilled and they will tell you the importance of practicing the basics. A skilled musician or vocalist must spend long hours performing simple exercises to keep his skills finely tuned. Or maybe he is in sales and must frequently practice the techniques involved in closing a sale. Or maybe she holds a managerial or executive position and uses role-playing exercises to practice certain critically important leadership methods. If you stop emphasizing the basics, you lose your edge, your skill level drops, and you become less effective at what you do. Always emphasize the basics. God does.

So how do you feel going through the drill repeatedly, rehearsing a basic principle for the umpteenth time? You might have a variety of reactions or feelings, including frustration. You may feel like you’re wasting your time practicing something you think you already know, when you could be doing something else. Maybe you become disappointed at your apparent lack of progress. You might even feel hopeless, as if you’ll never graduate from spiritual kindergarten.

Have you ever wondered why you have such reactions? You have them because you still think like the world–sinfully. While you may never put it in these words, you want things to happen the way you think they should, allowing you to achieve the greatest success and reward with the least amount of effort or displeasure. The more self-centered you are, the more you are likely to feel irritated, frustrated, disappointed, or even helpless for taking “another lap around the mountain.”

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you keep having frustrating experiences, for example because you are self-willed and things don’t go the way you want? Face it: things will not always happen the way you want, and feeling frustrated is a normal reaction; normal for sinful thinking, that is. Because you still have ungodly ways of thinking that have completely dominated you most–if not all–of your life, you may never have thought twice about your feelings of frustration. In reality, frustration should be a red flag warning you of a dangerous condition: sinfulness.

Again, frustrating experiences are a normal part of life. “Normal” because you have a sinful way of thinking and “frustrating” because something did not happen the way you thought it should. Simply recognize your sinful mindset as the source of such feelings, use the incident as an opportunity to change the attitude that produced the feelings (which is the essence of repenting), and go on with life. You may consider feelings like frustration a normal part of life and not be too concerned about them. From God’s perspective, however, they are sinful and evidence you need to continue changing the way you think.

The issue is not learning to deal with frustration or anger or irritation, but destroying all forms of self-centeredness. The feelings are only the symptoms, not the problems. It is the sinful attitude, the self-centered mindset, that has to die. The only way to put it to death is to reject its demands one incident at a time until God takes you home and permanently removes all the residue of your old sinful nature. Until then, you will experience the demands and reactions of an ungodly, self-centered mindset. You will feel disappointed when something doesn’t happen the way you want. You will trust your own judgment and distrust others.

All of this leads to an ongoing conflict between your new nature and your old ways, identical to the internal struggle Paul described in Romans. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Rom. 7:15, 18). You will experience this inner conflict as you submit to God’s plan. He says to us, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11). He also assures us that He works everything together for our benefit (Rom. 8:28). This means you can trust Him when your natural response is disappointment. Those irritating, frustrating experiences do not need to be setbacks for you, but instead can become opportunities to put your sinful ways progressively in their place: the grave.

Trust God to do what is best. This is something you do by deliberately reprogramming your mind. Repeat these words to yourself: “God will do what is best for me.” Sometimes God asks you to do things that are out of character for you, but that doesn’t mean He wants you to become a different kind of person. Instead, He knows some lessons are learned better in a different environment. What better way to learn to rely on Him, for example, than to do something beyond your own abilities? Or how else can you discover a latent ability if you never have to do something you haven’t done before? How can you learn the extent of God’s faithfulness if you never experience “hopeless” situations?

You may have heard it said, “If you keep doing things the same way, you’ll keep getting the same results.” As a child of God, you are to stop doing things the same old way, the way your old sinful nature wanted things done. That is no longer acceptable for you. God calls you to stop living according to your old ways and let Him teach you His ways. That means you must trust Him and do exactly as He says. Expect to struggle with yourself as you radically change the way you think. God also keeps taking you back to the basics and this may drive you nuts, but He knows that practice is vitally important and He alone knows when you have really learned those important lessons.

So prepare yourself because when you enroll in the School of the Spirit, your sinful mindset will choke on the classroom exercises and homework assignments. Get ready for some growing pains. The Bible says you are to put your sinful ways to death, and death is a painful process. But “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). Do whatever you must to become the person God intends, and it will be worth the light and momentary discomfort.