Growth and goals (2)
2020-12-14Proverbs 1:5 NIV
Solomon, who is often referred to as the wisest man who ever lived, apart from Christ, said, ‘Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.’ If we want to achieve all our God-given potential, we must make personal growth one of our highest priorities.
When water stays still for a long time, it becomes stagnant. And when we stop growing and stay in one place, we can stagnate too. Let’s take a moment to think about what happens when we allow ourselves to stand still and stagnate.
1) We lose our creativity. As we learn and discover new things, it opens up new connections. When we stop growing, we’re relying on old knowledge and old ideas, which makes it difficult for us to come up with fresh, innovative ideas.
2) We lose our influence. Friends, family or colleagues who used to seek out and value our opinion might stop coming to us for help and advice. As we saw in the first point, when we stop learning and growing, we lose a lot of our ability to bring new, creative ideas and solutions, so people will start to look elsewhere for advice.
3) We can’t reach our full potential. We might wonder why we’re stuck stacking chairs or making the coffee when we want to be leading a Bible study group or leading worship. Sometimes God will keep us in one place for a reason, but we also need to ask ourselves if it’s because we’re not putting in the effort to learn and grow the skills we need.
With God’s help, we’re capable of doing so much for His kingdom. But if we stop growing, God can’t give us the more skilful tasks He’d planned for us.