Spiritual Growth
Spritual GROWTH is integral to the human experience. It is through this that the Lord raises us. The natural process of natural growth (birth - death) mimics our spiritual development process. For this reason an adult behaving like a child is referred to as being immature. But why do we have to go through this process? Why aren’t we born with all the knowledge required for life? Why is it that animals, to whom we are superior, have all the knowledge –spectacular in most cases– required to live their lives? Let’s explore.
Unlike humans, animals are born into their perfect order: they come packaged with all the knowledge they need for their existence (nourishment, shelter, safety, reproduction, etc). For example, early in their lifecycles, butterflies make a protective covering (chrysalis) around themselves while they develop into adult butterflies with wings to fly. This is done without any supervision from a parent or peer. Beavers build dams to block streams of water in order to protect themselves from predators. All this is possible because animals do not have a rational faculty. In other words, they cannot reason about their life choices. Everything is done by instinct. They just do it. As such, a beaver will never corrupt the instructions required to be a beaver.
Humans, on the other hand, have the ability reason and the freedom to act in contrast to the order they were created in. For this reason, humans are born in complete ignorance. Through institutions such as families, schools, churches, etc., humans learn to take instructions necessary for GROWTH, so that they too can come into their order – a love for God and a love for the human race. The Lord provides this.
If humans were born into their perfect order, they would be conceited and will pervert that order into which they were born. This is because they would feel like a know-it-all, without need for instruction from God. The consequence of this is a deviation from God’s order and a determination of a new order for themselves – a destructive self-centered love. Challenges in life, thus, provide an opportunity to fallback unto the training they have received from these institutions, and GROW into the life for which they were ordained
This is how the Lord through his providence uses the GROWTH process to lead us, and it is why GROWTH is integral to our existence as humans