Do you remember the first time your wisdom teeth started to grow? It was a painful, uncomfortable and undesirable experience no doubt, but we went through it. Growth can often be brutal to us, but it's necessary and always worth it.
Growth will always be good for you, but it won't always feel good. God's intent and design for all human beings is to grow. The day we stop growing is the day we stop living life to the full. Imagine what your life would be now if you didn't take the time to embrace growth and the elements that cause us to grow. You'd probably be stuck in a job, habit, relationship and life that you wouldn't want to have.
Growth comes from God as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:7: "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." That remains true for organisations and movements and also holds true for individuals. God brings growth, but the way He does it will not always feel good. Many times it will be painful. Here are four undesirable yet necessary things God lets us experience to grow.
Failure
Setbacks: we all experience them and we can't control them, but what we can control is how we respond to them - we can either let them stop us and cause us to give up or let them teach us to trust in God more than our own strength. Psalm 73:26 tells us, "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
Failure is a necessity for success, not a deterrent to it. But for that to be so, we must respond in perseverance and trust in the Lord.
Sacrifice
Success comes to all who pay the price and the price will cost us a lot. Even Jesus taught us this and urges us to count the cost: "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?" (Luke 14:28). If we want to grow and to experience God's best, you will have to sacrifice and pay the price. It will cost you money, time and effort, but you can either see that as a loss or as an investment made to gain a better you.
Trials
James 1:2-3 teaches us, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." In the same way tests in school are there to measure what you have learned, tests in life exist for the same reason.
We will never truly know what we are capable of until we are tried and tested. Trials are God's way of showing ourselves what we are truly made of and to help us see whether we have truly grown through time.
Pruning
In gardening, plants are often pruned - leaves and stalks are removed - to help them bear fruits. It's the same for us. God takes away the things in us that do not produce fruit to give way for the things that do. They can be habits, desires, mindsets or even comfort zones that inhibit us from God's best.
As God prunes us, we are removed of some things that may have value to us only because He wants to bring upon you something of even greater value and in the process cause us to grow more.
