growth on Growing Up

I have a lot of growing up to do. I realized that the other day inside my fort.

Children have a tendency to say, “Look at me!” On the tricycle: “Look at me go!” On the trampoline: “Look at me bounce!” On the swing set: “Look at me swing!” Such behavior is acceptable for children....

”My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed...

I lust after recognition, I am desperate to win all the little merit badges and trinkets of my profession, and I am of less real use in this world than any good cleaning lady.

The human soul is like a fine wine that needs to ferment in various barrels as it ages and mellows. The wisdom for this is written everywhere, in nature, in scripture, in spiritual traditions, and in ...

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.

A Friend's Question: How Do I Go Deeper? I was having coffee with a good friend, which everyone knows is the best place for conversation, when he blurted out the question: “How do I go deeper ...

Spiritual growth is, in large measure, patterned on the nature of physical growth. We do not expect to put an infant into its crib at night and in the morning find a child, an adolescent or yet an adu...

A few years ago I had a little boy. Then, within a year, he became a man. He went through one of those adolescent growth spurts. He grew almost a foot in height, his voice dropped into a deep bass, he...

Experienced mountaineers have a quiet, regular, short step—on the level it looks petty; but then this step they keep up, on and on as they ascend, whilst the inexperienced townsman hurries along, and ...

[M]y husband, Nick, tells a story of when he was a teenager riding his bike with his friends, and his chain came off his bike. Nick took the bike to his dad, who said, “I'll fix it, you watch”. Hi...

Do not think that nothing is happening because you do not see yourself grow, or hear the whirr of the machinery. All great things grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child.

In a November 1882 sermon on 1 John 2, the renowned pastor and preacher C. H. Spurgeon offers a profound insight into the nature of Christian maturity. His remarks come as part of his exposition on th...

At every point in the human journey we find that we have to let go in order to move forward; and letting go means dying a little. In the process we are being created anew, awakened afresh to the sourc...

The right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes.

Sometimes the process of growth looks a lot like destruction and pain. But you’ll realize with time that you’re not breaking; you’re healing.

Once when my daughter was six and my son was two, my mother-in-law noticed my daughter holding a favorite toy just out of my son’s standing reach, and she gently scolded her for teasing him that way. ...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Imagine a doctor’s office where every patient is told, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” If I have a headache, that is great advice, but if my appendix has just burst, I will be dead befo...

A lack of nutrition in early life can result in stunted growth. Stunting results in lifelong health complications. According to the WHO: Stunting in early life -- particularly in the first 1000 days...

A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.

I don’t think that anybody can grow unless he really is accepted exactly as he is.

Loving God, you love us so much that you invite us to a life of transformation. You call us to live outside ourselves, and to follow you more faithfully with each day that passes. We confess to you th...

In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth, or to step back into safety. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

All growth that is not toward God is growing to decay.

Fear and growth go together like macaroni and cheese. It’s a package deal. The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus you must re...

When Jesus invites people to follow him, he doesn’t forecast the outcomes nor guarantee change overnight. He doesn’t promise that we’ll stop cussing in traffic tomorrow and never do it again, or that ...

In an essay on friendship, the renowned poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “My entire success, such as it is, is composed of particular failures.” There’s a deep truth in that line—one many of us need to...