Growing Down

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Today, I will be sharing an insight into something that has been of great help to me. If you are a Christian and interested in Spiritual growth you might remember a time it bothered you that you are not seeing all that you desired in your walk with God or you are probably in that season now. I have been in that situation and I am still in it, but I have gleaned some lessons from Gods word that have helped me stay strong.

When I began walking with God newly, I wanted to be everything immediately. I wanted to see myself growing into maturity overnight. I didn’t like the process involved at all, all I wanted was the result. I didn’t like the time it took, I wanted sharp sharp growth. Just like our fast paced world, I wanted my walk with God to be even faster.

Let me first say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to grow quickly, nothing bad about it at all. In fact, every Christian should desire growth and desire it badly, hunger is a good sign of being alive, so if you are not hungry for God, something is probably wrong and you should ask for the blessing of hunger for Him.

When I saw Colossians 2:7, it changed my life and my perspective.

Let your roots grow down into Him and draw up nourishment from Him. See that you keep on growing in the Lord… (TLB)

Continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him (NIV)

Have the roots (of your being) firmly and deeply planted in Him, fixed and founded in Him, being continually built up in him, becoming increasingly more confirmed (and) established in the faith… (AMP).

I discovered God wants his children to grow down first before growing up, let me explain with this illustration:

Have you ever planted a maize seed or any other seed? If you have, you will notice something; the seed doesn’t start sprouting immediately after planting until few days or weeks depending on the kind of seed.

When I was much younger, I went to farm with my late granny, we were planting maize seeds. The next day, we came to the farm to continue our work and everywhere was still normal. It wasn’t as though we had planted anything the previous day. The ground was still the same way; one could step on it without knowing there was a maize seed in the ground, no maize sprouts, no green leaves, just a heap of sand on the moulds. This is what happens in our walk with God.

When God plants his seed in us, our skin colour or height or even nationality doesn’t change. Spiritually speaking, you may not attain to the measure of the full stature of Christ immediately no matter how zealous we are, we will need to grow down first.

Initially, I thought that growing down is something we should do before we start growing up, but that’s half of the full story…

Growing down is something we must keep doing, if we must keep growing up. 

An Iroko tree takes years to allow its roots to go deep down into the ground in search of water and nutrients. With its roots deep down into the soil; it won’t wither in dry season because it has crossed the water beds. It has a constant supply of water and nutrients.

It’s the same way for us, in as much as we have established that before we race off on our zealous paths, we must grow down. Add this one to it: For you to continue growing up, you need to keep growing down. Letting your roots go down real deep into Christ. He is our sure foundation. That your zeal needs knowledge to channel it appropriately and you can only get it when you take time to grow down. Only a deep root can stand the storms of life. A shallow root like carpet grass is much easier to uproot than a mango tree, but you can agree with me that if you plant them the same day, you will notice that, one (the carpet grass) will spring up quickly while the mango tree will not. It takes a lot of time to grow down before growing up and it still doesn’t stop growing down while growing up.

If your roots are deep, you won’t be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. There is just so much flying around these days that you can easily get carried away by the latest ‘gospel’ in town and miss the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus.

Finally, it is from the roots of the tree that nutrients are supplied for the production of fruits. In the same way, if we are not firmly rooted there will be no fruits for the world to see and glorify our Father in heaven.

God has so much in store for us, we can’t access them if we remain shallow, lacking in depth and strength. Like Paul, we must keep on laying hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of us. This way, we can be firmly planted and grow to produce precious fruits that are much needed in our generation.

Don’t stop growing down…into Christ

Much Love.