Vietnam Evangelical Covenant Church – Examine the forces shaping your expectations. Don’t let false assumptions leave you discouraged and disillusioned. Your Christian life and your church are more like slow, faithful, patient farming than efficient modern manufacturing. Trust your heavenly Gardener, your Vinedresser. He has good reasons for growing Christians and churches slowly rather than mass-producing them quickly.
We live in an age where everything is fast: fast delivery, fast results, fast success. So slow spiritual growth in our life of faith easily discourages us. This article helps us see slow growth through the eyes of Scripture. Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
Today we value speed more than we realize, and that makes the often painfully slow process of sanctification and personal transformation even more confusing and discouraging. We live in an age of rapid technological change, in a society that prizes efficiency, productivity and instant results so much that we can hardly resist the idea that faster is better. As a result, we often fail to appreciate the precious benefits of slow growth.
Speed Shapes Us
For most of human history, the lives of most people followed the relatively slow, cyclical rhythm of the seasons. Life was demanding and hard because it centered mainly on survival, so people lived by the migrations of fish and herds, the cycles of trees, planting and harvest, rainy and dry seasons. Because these things were essential, people came to understand and value slowness, a gradual process toward a desired reward. Food, clothing and shelter came through hard, persistent and careful effort.
In the United States, this has almost completely disappeared from living memory. For generations now, an abundance and variety of affordable food has been normal for most families, prepared, packaged and inspected. Most of us do not work as hard for it as our ancestors did, nor do we spend as large a share of our yearly income on food, water and shelter.
On the whole, these are great blessings. But growing abundance and convenience have shaped, or in some ways distorted, how we view time. Now we expect almost everything to happen quickly and with little or no inconvenience.
Slow Growth
Yet the factors most helpful for boosting productivity, economic growth and the health of individuals and cities are not necessarily the most helpful for spiritual growth and the spiritual health of individuals and churches.
God created us as living creatures, not machines. There are countless reasons why the fullness of time came when God sent His Son in the first century (Galatians 4:4). One of them is that Jesus could often use agricultural metaphors to illustrate spiritual truths. Think of the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1–9), the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24–30), the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31–32). Think of trees bearing fruit (Matthew 7:16–18), the vine and the branches (John 15:1–8), the harvest of souls (Matthew 9:37–38; John 4:35–38). The apostles used similar images, such as spiritual fruit (Galatians 5:22–23) and God’s field (1 Corinthians 3:6–9).
The first hearers of these metaphors understood them intuitively, because they were familiar with farming, a naturally gradual, incremental process of growth. Many of us can miss this meaning because the process is so foreign to us. Christians grow slowly, and fruit usually comes after a long, hard season of growth.
The same is true of churches. There is a reason we call starting a new church “church planting” and not “church manufacturing.” We admire stories of explosive church growth, just as we admire booming businesses. That is not wrong, but it is not common. And even what looks like a sudden harvest is usually the result of a long, unseen season of hard sowing, watering and cultivating (John 4:35–38).
The Benefits of Slow Growth
God designs us to develop habits of obedience and holiness slowly and gradually because this process teaches and trains us to live by faith rather than by unreliable feelings and impressions. Waiting teaches us to trust the truth of God’s Word more than the impulses of what we see or feel.
The long-term benefit of slow, gradual transformation through practiced habits rather than impulses is that, over time, our faith grows deeper, richer, more complex and more integrated into our whole lives. These are things I have only grasped in middle age, things I did not appreciate when I was young.
God’s ways often seem inefficient to us. We may even think they are needlessly slow and ineffective. But none of God’s ways are unnecessary, and God is not slow; He is patient (2 Peter 3:9).
He wants us to learn patience too, a slow-growing fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Don’t be discouraged by your slow growth or your church’s. Hold fast to this: “Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3). And remember the larger principle Jesus spoke to Peter: “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand” (John 13:7).
Examine the forces shaping your expectations. Don’t let false assumptions leave you discouraged and disillusioned. Your Christian life and your church are more like slow, faithful, patient farming than efficient modern manufacturing. Trust your heavenly Gardener, your Vinedresser. He has good reasons for growing Christians and churches slowly rather than mass-producing them quickly.
Being Patient With Slow Growth
A farmer does not dig up the seed every day to see whether it has sprouted. He sows, waters, waits and trusts. The spiritual life is the same: God is the one who gives the growth, and our part is to be faithful in small habits such as reading His Word, praying and fellowshipping with other believers.
If you are disappointed with your own slow growth or your church’s, look back at where you were a year ago. You may be surprised to see how much more God has changed you than you thought.
You may also like: Church Small Groups and God Is Not Limited.
Prayer
Lord, teach us to be patient with the work You are doing in us. When growth seems slow, help us trust that You are the one who gives the growth, and that You will complete the good work You have begun. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Article: Communications Ministry – Vietnam Evangelical Covenant Church
Adapted from: DesiringGod.org
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