Copyright 2015 by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved
It is a biblical truism that we should never be so satisfied with our spiritual growth that we stop seeking it. However is it also possible that we can become so dissatisfied with the perception of our “growth rate” that we are robbed of the joy and peace that God wants us to know? I believe this is a vital question for the Christ-follower to ask and one that needs a definitive answer.
The Church has no shortage of perfectionist believers. These are the perennially frustrated people who are forever trying to be holy in their own strength; either with or without a conscious recognition that this faulty approach to the Christian life is what so frustrates them. A compulsion to try to earn the acceptance of God is the bane of their spiritual existence and this compulsion is widespread in the Body of Christ today (especially in a Church often unknowingly influenced by the often performance-oriented culture that surrounds it.)
There are perhaps few things more corrosive to human souls than the nagging feeling that we will never “measure up.” This is the primary source of a sense of dissatisfaction with our rate of growth in the things of God. Spiritual perfectionism is, at best, deadly to our sense of well-being. At worst it can shipwreck our faith. Human perfectionism short-circuits the healing power of divine grace and it is exactly that grace which makes all true progress in the faith possible.
Some will assert that an opposite problem is just as spiritually harmful. This is what might be called “spiritual laziness”; the tendency to take grace for granted and not be at all concerned with growing in the knowledge and righteousness of God. I’m sure this is a real issue for many believers as well, but I cannot speak to it. The reason is that, on a personal level, I have only known the deleterious effects of “Christian Perfectionism” (an oxymoron, by the way, if there ever was one.) The truth is I have been guilty of it myself.
The answer I have found, even if I too often forget it, is that all growth is a process. This is true in both the natural and supernatural realms. Human beings do not come to spiritual maturity in a day any more than they do in regards to physical maturity. We, hopefully, do not expect young children to take on adult responsibility for the simple reason that they are not adults. What we are at 10 years of age and what we are at 40 are simply not comparable. So it is for the earnest Christian who is 10 years in the faith versus one who is 40 years in. A long process of growth is built into God’s creation. There are no instant short cuts to maturity, as much as we might prefer that to be the case.
This is not to say that spiritual growth is automatic. We do play a role in our growth, but not in the sense of being its source. The motive power, again, is always the grace of God. It is He who wills and works true change in us. Our primary role is to surrender to His power, never trying to generate it on our own. In that sense the role we play is a passive one. We must choose not to try to work for our sanctification because, in doing so, we actually impede it. For real sanctification to occur we must “get out of the way” and truly let God be God in our lives. If we have been caught up in perfectionistic self-effort for a long time this will not happen overnight. The surrender of our perfectionism is itself a process.
It is in the ongoing acceptance of this reality that we find the needed answer to a joy and peace-robbing dissatisfaction with our spiritual progress. It is in that answer that we will progressively restore both of these deepest of blessings to our lives.
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