STUMBLING FORWARD

 Under the best of circumstances, spiritual growth is an inexact science. The Bible gives us models to study, principles to understand, and the Holy Spirit to guide us — but no benchmarks to tell us when we’ve finally arrived. I believe my great interest in spiritual growth stems from the fact that I have struggled with it all my life and haven’t always done as well as I would have liked. Beneath my exterior is a man who frequently says, “Why did I do that? I know better than that. Will I ever grow up?”

Spiritual growth is often a set of paradoxical steps. We go several steps ahead and then we take a step or two back. Because there is a map that gets blurred as we try to view it through our humanity, we sometimes take the wrong road and then have to run around and find the right one. I have gained a new appreciation for the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-15 (NIV): “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Paul seemed to understand that his humanity often got in the way of his desire to grow in God.

I recently reread the Book of Acts. One of my troublesome personal traits is that I read passages of Scripture with an eye to understand as much of the minutiae as I can: “Why did the writer say that? What was the problem he was dealing with? What did the original language say there?”  Most of the time that is good but sometimes it is refreshing to take what I call the panoramic view — just read the passages or the book and see what jumps out at you. Don’t go hunting — instead, let the truth fly to you.

When you approach the reading of the Book of Acts as the story of the early church rather than trying to mine gold from every verse, you begin to see the story of a church fumbling its way forward.

In the first ten chapters of Acts, the church was made up primarily of Jewish converts. Most of the Jews went to the synagogue on the Sabbath (Saturday) and then worshipped with their “believer” friends on Sunday. The early church held on to the Jewish law as they attempted to “fumble their way forward” in this new life they had found in the Messiah. The church had not yet stumbled its way into a full understanding of grace.

It was not until Peter had his roof-top encounter with God over what is clean and what is not (Acts 10) that the church began to break out of the idea that this new life through Jesus was not exclusively for the Jews. Suddenly the church began to fumble its way out of the past into the future and into becoming the worldwide entity that it now is. But the forward movement was a struggle and it wasn’t until years later that Paul and Barnabus (Acts 15) went to Jerusalem and confronted the pharisaical idea that Gentiles had to become Jews in order to become Christians. It was a stumbling forward progress by very human people just like all of us.

Back to the panoramic view of the Book of Acts for a moment. Acts tell us that Paul took at least four missionary journeys. His first trip took him into modern day Turkey, roughly 500 miles from Jerusalem. The second and third trips took him about 900 miles from home, and his fourth and final trip about 1500 miles from home. Paul’s journeys can be described as a series of expanding circles. As his faith and experience grew, so did the scope of his ministry.

Like our journey of faith through this life, some of Paul’s trips were marked with immediate success. However, sometimes he didn’t know exactly where to go; sometimes the Spirit of the Lord wouldn’t let him go where he wanted; and sometimes the growth came only through great struggle. Paul’s second and third journeys were virtually over the same territory. More than once he had to revisit areas where the truth didn’t seem to take a good hold the first time and the people needed some additional attention for growth to happen. (Wow! This sounds just like my journey of faith.) But Paul kept stumbling his way forward and his journey is a great model upon which we can base our spiritual life and growth.

Paul’s tenacious desire to grow made him into the champion of the faith that he became.

“Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit.” (Dr. Edwin Louis Cole)