Never Stop Learning

From my book, Nothing Worth Doing Is Easy...

I’ve always been a pretty private person, probably due in large part to the things I endured as a child and a teenager, so I see the simple fact that those walls are thinning as a significant step in the right direction. I don’t know how long it will take to finish that particular part of my spiritual growing process, or even if I ever truly will, but I also don’t really think it matters. As long as I continue to grow, that’s all I can really ask for. After all, it wasn’t all that many years ago when I didn’t even really know what spiritual growth actually was, let alone how to actually accomplish it.

I was always led to believe spiritual growth simply meant adhering to a set of legalistic rules and dogmas that didn’t even always have a biblical basis of any kind. Based on that belief, I grew up thinking the ultimate goal of my spiritual growth was to be perfect and finally become “good enough” for God.

I now know, though, that there couldn’t be a more clear contradiction to that belief and mindset throughout the message of the Bible. Isaiah 64:6, for example, puts it this way, “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.” Similar sentiments are conveyed in Ephesians 2:8-9, where Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Not only is it made perfectly clear in those and other passages that I, as a human being, can’t achieve anywhere near the level of perfection God represents, but I’m not expected to do it. Yes, I still have the pressure of trying to live the least sinful life I can, but a huge load came off of my shoulders when I realized I didn’t have to completely avoid ever slipping up to have a chance. I can and already do have the connection with Jesus Christ I always longed for, because that gift was already extended. I simply had to reach out and accept it.

If not for my newfound church family, I never would have realized that. I would have all but certainly spent the rest of my life in a hopeless effort to reach unattainable perfection, failing miserably along the way. Eventually, I probably would have just given up, ultimately ending up in a far worse place than I ever was when I was a kid.

In the few years I’ve been attending my current church home, I’ve heard my pastor say on a few occasions that he never wanted to be a pastor when he was growing up. The son of a pastor himself, he simply didn’t want anything to do with a lot of what he saw when he observed his own father as a child and was a far from willing participant in God’s plan for his life in the beginning. Obviously, though, he did ultimately follow the call God was clearly making on his life and that’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Not only have I learned more thanks to finding the church he and his family started, but I’ve grown both spiritually and emotionally, more than I ever thought I could before that happened. Not only am I a better disciple of Christ now that I finally have a true church home and family, but I’m a better man.

I’ve said and thought this on several occasions, around several different people, and I’ll say it again; if not for the fact that Brandon reluctantly accepted God’s call to become a pastor, I genuinely believe I wouldn’t be alive today. There are far too many experiences — both good and bad — I’ve had and connections I’ve made over these past few years to believe anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I do give Brandon and his family a lot of the credit for the fact that things fell into place in my life the way they have these last few years, but it’s no secret who’s really behind it all. I wouldn’t trade my new church family for anything, but I owe my survival and the circumstances that led to it in recent years to God and His guidance in my life.

I know I can’t live up to God’s standards or repay any of the debt Jesus Christ paid for me on the Cross, but I genuinely hope and pray I can continue my growth and always listen when I hear the call to stay on the path that’s been laid out for me. I hope to never stop learning and growing, so I can achieve as much of the closeness with my God that I nearly gave up when things went bad.

If I can be helpful to someone else along the way who might be dealing with their own struggles, I’ll consider that a best case scenario. If I can’t do that, then so be it, but if the lessons I’ve learned and the struggles I had to face over the course of my life in order to learn those lessons end up helping one fellow Christian find their way, it’s all worth it.