GOD IS ON THE MOVE - ENTRY #2
Stories come in all shapes and sizes. When we try and pay attention to what God is doing stories usually won't be in the form of a number or an event, often times the story is about what God is doing within us and how He's transforming us as people. He will certainly do things through us, around us, or for us--but the deep work within us are the stories that often go untold.
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STORY #2 -- BY TONY DILLARD
There comes a time in everyone’s life when we have no choice but to grow up. We’re consistently told as children that someday this time will come, and we will become adults, as if it were some cocoon-like transformation occurring over a matter of predetermined days. You rarely question this as a kid; we are innately programmed as children to not be concerned with the matters of what big people call “getting old”. Until one day, one unexpected, regular day, you realize it’s already happened.
You see, growth is not nearly as objective as it’s made out to be. We assume “growing up” is universal, and we’ll all be in the same place once we get there (wherever “there” is). But no one warns you that in comparison to everyone you know and love, you’ll all grow at different paces, and at unequal lengths. If everyone would just grow uniformly, growth wouldn’t be the subjective transitional process that it is. Because that’s what it is: a process.
It’s not college course, or a red or blue pill. It’s not even necessarily a decision, or lack-there-of. It’s the result of time plus experience, and your response to it all. Because in the end, it’s not about acknowledging our inevitable growth, rather about how we grow. That’s what sets us apart.
Growth is the product of recognizing how God has intricately and intimately placed His hand into every aspect my life; this recognition only being possible retrospectively. It’s looking back at every moment and seeing how it made me. Every friend, every heartbreak, every failed class and wrecked car. Every curse word and unnecessary argument, every hand held and family movie night. Those things - they’re what made me. It doesn’t have to be a burning bush or a talking donkey. God has, was, and always will be moving in me. And maybe, just maybe, He has me exactly where he needs me. My current disposition is the sum of 22 years of God opening and closing doors; yelling in my heart language or whispering through the words of another person. The older I get, the more I have to reflect on, and the easier it is to see how the Lord works in me and through me. Every single aspect of my life has been ordained by God, and the inescapable product of growth is what I can offer in return. He’s brought me to where I am; how could I not want to give it all to Him?
Growing up doesn’t mean growing apart. It’s not wrinkly skin and a 9 to 5. It’s the acceptance that we partner with a God who so greatly cares for us so that He promises our growth won’t be in vain. It’s taking everything we have ever known and learned, and giving it back to God.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9