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Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:8 provide a simple, yet beautiful picture of spiritually mature believers who live in Christ's abundant life. The verses' illustration uses a healthy, mature tree that has its needs fulfilled by a nearby stream, is resilient amid heat and drought, and is unceasingly fruitful in its season. Such is a beautiful picture of the abundant life for believers who rely on God's perfect providence for their needs, face life's storms through His strength, and bear much fruit in faithfully serving Him through the Holy Spirit. However, the tree in these verses also represents an overlooked, yet crucial aspect of the abundant life. Specifically, as a tree requires many years of natural growth before it becomes tall and fruitful, so does the process of spiritual growth require a lifetime of the Holy Spirit's work to make us increasingly Christlike and fruitful.
Sadly, many Christians are unaware of this truth, instead believing that spiritual growth is a quick process that is always visibly advancing at every moment. This misconception is very harmful for them because it causes great discouragement and frustration when they go through periods of failure, spiritual drought, and minimal progress. Fortunately, the Scriptures reveal that spiritual growth is a lifelong process by which God uses years and even decades to bring each of His children to a place where they will fully submit to the Holy Spirit's work and are fully available for spiritual service to God.
This slow, gradual process is seen in the lives of multiple Biblical figures. For example, the Apostle Paul was set aside by God before he began the bulk of his ministry. He reveals in Galatians 1:11-19 that he spent three years in Arabia after his conversion, being set aside before meeting the apostles in Jerusalem. A more shocking example is Moses, who was set aside for significantly longer before God used him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. After failing to help them in his own strength in Exodus 2:11-15, Moses lived in Midian for forty years until Exodus 3, where God, in His perfect timing, called him to liberate Israel. As demonstrated by these two accounts, God often reserves long durations of gradual spiritual growth to prepare us for wholehearted, Spirit-filled service to Him.
There are multiple reasons for why this process must be slow and lengthy. The first is that spiritual growth is never meant to be completed in this life. As Paul notes in Philippians 1:6, this work will not be finished until Christ's second coming, where the fullness of our sanctification and glorification will finally come to pass. The second reason for spiritual growth's slow pacing is that it involves the breaking of the outer man. As John 12:24 notes how the fruit within a grain of wheat cannot be released unless its shell is broken, so it is with the Holy Spirit's fruit trapped within the hard shell of our flesh. The process by which this occurs ties into the third reason, which is for us to be taught crucial spiritual lessons by God. Through many years of continual prayer, Bible study, and experiences both good and bad, we gradually learn about God and ourselves. Through this, we increasingly come to understand our complete inability to serve Him in the flesh (Rom. 8:7), our need for Him due to our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10), and the necessity of dying to self to be made available to serve Him (Mat. 16:24). It is for these crucial reasons that God devotes significant time to our spiritual growth.
Although we may desire quick, immediate results in our spiritual growth, the Scriptures reveal the necessity of the slow, gradual process God has designed for it. It is only at this perfect pace that we will begin to realize through experience our inability to serve God in the flesh, gradually grow in our relationship with Him, and continually have our outer man broken by the Holy Spirit's work of renewal. By continually submitting to this long-term process, we will grow in capacity to be like the tree in Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:8, resting in God's perfect providence, relying on Him in the midst of adversity, and trusting in Him to produce fruit from our servitude to Him.
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