Growth That Lasts
Growth that Lasts
My husband and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary back in May. In honor of the occasion, I planted two young apple trees in our front yard.
Both trees suffered from transplant shock the first few weeks they were in the ground, but then to our great delight, both began sprouting new leaves—the first sign of viability!
Over the next month, however, things took a turn. While one tree flourished, producing robust foliage, what few leaves the other tree had produced began to curl, eventually dying off and leaving behind a leafless—all but lifeless—base.
We haven’t given up on that second tree yet, though. I’m still tending to it and making adjustments, and we’re still hoping—even praying—for a comeback. It’s possible that that tree just needs a bit more time to acclimate and to really take root.
With each new day, we’ve been checking for any signs of growth, and each new day, we’ve been met with disappointment.
Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. See, the other day, I happened to glance at the tree from across the yard when I noticed what appeared to be two new leaves sprouting from the top of the sapling! Upon closer investigation, however, those two “leaves” turned out to be… a dragonfly.
Then a few days later, my husband called out to me in excitement, announcing that it looked like that sad apple tree was finally making a comeback!
“Oh, never mind… That’s funny. Huh. It’s just a dragonfly sitting on top of that tree, but from over here, it looks like a couple of leaves.”
“I saw the exact same thing the other day!” I exclaimed.
And sure enough, that dragonfly has shown up nearly every afternoon for the past couple weeks, always perched at the exact same spot—always briefly mistaken, by one of us, as evidence of growth and continued life. But the “leaves” we’re seeing are never really leaves. They just look like the real thing, when we don’t look too closely. And perhaps more notably, they don’t remain. They come and go with the breeze.
Spiritual growth is kind of like this, too…
Sometimes, we can think we’ve grown, because we’re acting a certain way that’s different than we used to. Maybe we’re being kinder, or more patient, or less self-centered. And others might look at us and, from a distance, think we’re healthier or more mature than we really are.
The question is, does that change in us remain? Or when the winds of life hit us hard, do we revert right back to our old ways and attitudes and behaviors?
See, sometimes, what we think is spiritual growth truly is spiritual growth. It’s the product of remaining close to Jesus—so close that we’re morphing into His likeness, as He’s working in and through us (Galatians 5:25).
But other times, what we think is spiritual growth is just our attempt to mimic, in our own strength, what we know is right and good and better. Unchallenged and unscrutinized, our best attempts might pass as the real deal for a while, but they’ll never last, because they were never real. Just like that dragonfly that sits atop our barren apple tree each afternoon, looking like newly sprouted leaves, after a while, the winds of life will blow through, and only what’s left—what still remains, if anything—will prove to have been genuine growth.
This is what Jesus had to say on the matter:
Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me... You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. - John 15:4, 16 (CSB)
A good metric for measuring spiritual growth in our lives is whether or not the “fruit” (or foliage) we’re seeing in ourselves, or that others are able to see in us, lasts. Because if it can up-and-fly-away like a dragonfly, at a moments notice, it might just have been a dragonfly all along.
But when you and I remain close to Jesus, walking in His footsteps, moment by moment—the growth He produces in us, as we surrender to Him, is going last.
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