Growing on the Journey
By Linda Rex
Five years ago, when I first arrived in Tennessee, I was visiting with people after services during our Community Café free meal when I noticed a lady who seemed to be in tears on the other side of the room. I remember going over to her and asking her if I could help. We had a long conversation that day about all the struggles she was having in her life. I prayed for her, and hoped in my heart she would experience God comfort and peace in the midst of her struggles.
As time passed, I and the members of Good News Fellowship began to get to know this woman better. And as we watched, she grew in her relationship with Jesus and her love for God and his ways. She still had struggles as she continued her journey of growing up in Christ, but she was learning to live and walk daily in a relationship of love and grace with God and others. It was wonderful for me and my spiritual family at Good News Fellowship to see her blossom and grow as time went by.
This journey she was taking was the journey of faith, of developing a deeper relationship with the God who made each of us in his image and who is growing each of us up into the likeness of his Son Jesus Christ by the Spirit. I like to use the image of a journey because when a person comes to faith in Christ, turning away from all other idols and distractions and turning towards Jesus in face-to-face relationship, God doesn’t suddenly make that person perfect. Rather, their perfection is hidden with Christ in God and the Spirit works it out in them as they walk through life and respond to Jesus’ work by the Spirit in their hearts and lives.
Growing up in Christ takes time. And it takes experiences in which we engage in relationships with other people and in circumstances in life in which we are challenged to live out the truth of who God is and who we are in him. We sometimes do a great job of responding to the work of the Spirit, but other times it seems as if we are the same as we always have been. Even to those closest to us it may look in some ways as if nothing has changed, while in others, we are not the same at all.
This is the work of the Spirit. He seems to have his own agenda as he goes to work in our lives. And the more I learn from God’s Word, the more I see it’s a whole lot more about interacting with our Abba and Jesus on the journey than it is about reaching some impossible ideal in this life. There is a life for us, eternal life, which involves an ongoing conversation and interaction as we go through our everyday circumstances. We learn to trust and we grow in faith as we walk with God in the Spirit.
As people of faith, we have the opportunity to share our relational journey with others. We can share with them how we struggle, what we have learned, and how we have encountered the living God in our life situations and difficulties. We can learn things about ourselves and God on this journey, and then share what we have learned with the significant people in our lives. And we can include them in our journey with the Triune God through prayer for them and with them.
At different times and at the perfect moment, God puts people in our lives with whom he wants us to share our journey of faith. He creates opportunities for us to share with these people what we have learned about Abba, Jesus, and the Spirit, and what we have learned about ourselves. He puts us in situations where the only answer we can give to another person is Jesus Christ, and so we respond to this reality by praying in his name for the blessing of God upon this person in the midst of their troubles or their joy.
And so we find ourselves interconnected in relationships of compassion, grace, and love. We grow close to each other, and our differences in personalities and preferences come into play, causing us to have to wrestle with and work them out with one another. What we are doing is growing up in Christ—growing up into the type of persons who can and will live together in eternity with one another in a oneness in which each is able to be distinctly themselves, and yet in which each is found to be equal in person and being with the others. This is a true reflection of the being of the God who is Abba, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
Yes, this life is but the beginning of a relational journey which will last for all eternity. If we insist on living independently of others, or on preying on others, or on creating division and suffering in our relationships, we will find ourselves isolated, alone, and uncomfortable in a place where God’s goodness, love and grace reign. Missing those material goods and temporal values we clung to in this life, we will feel lost and devastated—something God never meant for us to have to experience.
It’s not easy to open ourselves up to God or others, but it’s what we were created to be—relational beings. When we make room for God and others in our lives, and we acknowledge our utter dependence upon God in each moment, living in the truth of who we are in Christ, we will find ourselves not only filled with God’s peace and joy, but also held by God in the midst of the struggles and griefs of this life. And we will want to tell others about what God has done and is doing in our lives.
This is the life God created for us in Christ and is calling us to share in. This is the eternal life which is ours and we can participate in even now when we turn to Jesus Christ. My prayer is that each of us will begin to see more clearly Abba’s face in the face of his Son Jesus by his Spirit, and that our hearts and lives will be transformed in the process. There is such joy, peace, and personal blessing available to each of us, and God wants us to experience them both now and forever, and so do I.
Thank you, Abba. You are always at work revealing yourself to each of us in your Son and by your Spirit. Thank you for transforming our hearts by faith as we turn to Jesus and surrender to your ways of living and being. May you finish what you have begun in us so we may spend both now and eternity growing in our relationship with you and all those you place in our lives, through Jesus our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4 NASB)
Our Life in the Trinity 