Slow-growth Discipleship

I remember something a professor said in college that struck me at the time, even as a teenager. It must have been an epiphany for me because I can still remember seeing and hearing him say it.

I don’t even remember the professor’s name, but I so keenly remember him saying that if we would articulate our assumptions, we would realize how silly they are. If we could speak aloud our unspoken presuppositions, we could recognize them for what they are and deal with them much more intelligently and calmly.

This is true, of course.

It is true of our relationships, where we allow unspoken assumptions to contaminate our attitudes toward one another.

It is true of our stewardship, where unspoken assumptions about our resources (our time, our money, our energy) warp our perception of our situation.

And it is true of our discipleship, both our own spiritual growth and the spiritual growth of people we work with.

And what is the unspoken assumption that skews the way we think about spiritual growth? It is the assumption we bring over from our mile-a-minute culture: everything happens fast.

It’s true that things are happening fast. So many things about our culture – technology, cultural trends, political realities, social media “hot takes” – change so quickly that adjusting to rapid change has become a survival skill.

But we cannot bring that mindset into the world of spiritual growth. In fact, mile-a-minute expectations are toxic in the world of spiritual growth.

Recently, I’ve come two articles that have prompted me to think about these things. Ray Ortlund is the recently retired pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville. In his article “Your Ministry Will Take a Lifetime: My Counsel for Younger Men,” Ortlund urges young Christian leaders to be patient with the process of growth in ministry skills. Ortlund urges young leaders to give themselves time:

[God’s] plan, his timing, his methods are well suited to get you ready for the greatest moments of your life still out ahead. But if your pride can’t stoop to being tested first, you are blocking the very future you long for. Humble yourself, be patient, go deep. And don’t forget to enjoy it along the way. The Lord is with you and for you. Obviously, he isn’t in any hurry. Why should you be?

Ortlund is onto something. There is something frustratingly non-linear about spiritual growth, always a three-steps-forward-two-steps-back feeling to our spiritual progress. This means that we must resist the temptation to look at any given moment in our spiritual life (or the lives of people we work with) as a final, fixed reality. The work that God is doing in our lives is on His timetable, and we must withhold judgment until it is finished (not in this life).

The other article that has captured this thought is “When Mentoring Gets Messy” by Erin Davis. Erin is an author, blogger, and speaker. And she disciples younger women, just as Scripture instructs (Titus 2).

But Erin understands the uneven nature of the ministry of one-on-one discipling. She has felt the disappointment of investing countless hours in someone’s life, only to see it all seemingly go to waste when the person fails to apply what she is learning.

The trick, she says, is to calibrate our expectations not toward results but toward the process. She writes:

I’ve often heard Lore Ferguson Wilbert champion “fidelity to the Word of God and not an outcome.” This applies to the Christian life—especially Christian discipleship. We invest in the lives of others. We pray for our Christian brothers and sisters. We stir one another up toward righteousness and good deeds. We bear each other’s burdens. We do this, not because we are guaranteed a specific outcome, but because God’s Word calls us to.

Just think of Job. You remember how he responded on the worst day of his life? In one day he learned not only that all his wealth was gone but also – and far more disastrous – that all his children had died in one tragic accident.

The words that came out of Job’s mouth were the right words to say, but you can be sure he didn’t generate those sentiments in that moment.

When Job said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he wasn’t being spontaneous. Surely he croaked those words in between sobs. And yet those were the words he said.

How?

How could a man respond to such an awful turn of events with such deep confidence in the wisdom and plan of God? How could he think that way in that moment?

No doubt that was not the first day Job had thought that way about the things and people he loved. That perspective was born not in that moment but in the years of thinking deeply about God and His ways. He had nourished that faith in God over many years, and that was what came out of his mouth in that critical moment.
 
If we want to grow spiritually, if we want to help others grow spiritually, we have to lay aside the mile-a-minute mindset that drives the rest of our lives. And we have to set our sight not on outcomes but on simple obedience.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor