Do You Doubt that He's Growing You?
“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
Whenever I go to the beach I keep an eye out for the biggest live oaks. Hilton Head Island has a collection of these sprawling trees that can spread their limbs up to 150 feet across. That’s about half the length of a football field.
When I see these trees, I’m in awe of God’s work. However, sometimes it’s difficult to see God working in my own life.
When I’m absorbed in the rhythm and community of camp or when I’m occupied with a Bible Study or mission work it seems so obvious that God is busy molding me. Then there are times that just feel still. The kind of still where it feels like nothing is really evolving in my heart or mind. Like I’m neither being filled up nor pouring myself out. Like a glass in the cupboard waiting to be used but gathering dust instead.
During these times, I sometimes doubt that God is moving in my life because I don’t always “feel” like I am growing in my faith, and when I don’t “feel” God working in my day to day life, it is easy to doubt that He is working on my future. Thankfully, in Philippians, Paul reminds Christ followers that God is never done working in our lives. He even goes as far as to say that the Lord won’t quit until his good work is complete “on the day of Christ Jesus.”
That means God is working in you now and He isn’t planning on taking any breaks until Jesus returns to earth. Even on those days where I feel like I’m just sitting on a shelf waiting for something meaningful to happen, God is coordinating the circumstances of my life to mold me into the woman he wants me to become. The fact that I do not always “feel” God working in my heart does not negate the fact that He is indeed at work.
When I struggle to see God’s hand at work in my own life, I think of how he grows the live oak tree from a tiny acorn into the giant it becomes.
In the words of Christian author and speaker Bob Benson, “Now if God can take a tiny seed and, in the process of giving it his life, endow it with the knowledge of what it is supposed to be; if he can give it the purpose and strength and fruitfulness to not only accomplish it all, but to perpetuate itself as well; and if he can give it an inner calendar to tell it when all of this is supposed to be done, why is it so hard to believe he has done the same for our hearts?”
Don’t you think that your Heavenly Father loves you much more than a tree? I do. If he pours so much of himself into the world around us, I can only imagine what He is doing in our hearts.
Trust God in those still moments of life, knowing that the creator of the universe and all its beauty is never done working in you and that his faithfulness continues until the end of time.