Spiritual
Development
The testing of
your faith develops perseverance.
James 1:2
Leaning down, inches from Evan’s
face, Bruce, his personal trainer, demanded, “Give me two more
reps! C’mon, you can do it! Fight the desire to quit!” Evan’s
arms shook as he fought gravity, pushing the barbell up with his last
ounce of strength.
Both reps completed, he wrestled the
barbell back onto the rack above him, and collapsed in exhaustion.
“Good job, Ev,” Bruce exhorted. “I
knew you could do it!”
“I wasn’t as sure as you,” Evan
replied breathlessly, then admitted, “It took everything I had to
get that second rep up. I’d have never made it a third time!”
“I remember hearing you say something
similar not all that long ago,” Bruce teased.
Now it was Evans’ turn to smile as he
thought back to the day he’d told Bruce, “I’ll never get past
two hundred.” It had taken eighteen months…but he’d just
pressed two-forty seven times! He remembered Bruce’s initial
assertion, “If there’s no resistance, there’ll be no gain in
strength or muscle-mass.”
Bruce certainly knew what he was
talking about, because although he himself had had doubts,
Bruce had been positive Evan would one day accomplish the goal
reached today! “Building muscle comes in stages, Ev. You don’t
just bench-press two-forty over night!”
†
In order for growth of any kind to take
place there must be opposition present. Resistance builds strength…in
our bodies… our minds…and our spirits. We develop spiritual
muscle as we fight spiritual battles. The more we fight, the stronger
we become!
Left in our spiritual infancy we are
unable to stand up under life’s trials; we are of no use to
ourselves or anyone else.
James understood that our spiritual
strength can only be built by going through spiritual adversity. That
very adversity causes us to grow stronger, to mature as children of
God so that we might become a formidable opponent of our enemy! We
are to embrace challenge, not grumble about the things God allows to
come our way.
Prayer
“Help me maintain a
positive perspective in my spiritual maturation, LORD.
Give me the courage to push against the opposition so that I become
the strong Christian You know I can become. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”
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