THE MARK OF GROWTH

THE MARK OF GROWTH

You are brought through winters morally in order to prove the real amount of your resources, and what you have stored up in the summer. You are only aware of your acquisitions as they are required. I am not to be measuring my height or weighing myself in order to ascertain my progress.

As your day, so shall your strength be. “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12: 9), is the answer to faith. It is not how I have grown. When I am really growing I have not the sense of growing, but I have an increased sense of demand from all around and of supply from Christ. I am feeding more on His death, and I need it more. This entails death on myself as a man, while it introduces me the more fully into His life. The more I grow, the more I require sap for an increased number of branches and buds, leaves, flowers and fruit. Look at an old tree, see the numberless demands and the vast supplies which that tree requires, though its growth is not so visible as that of a young tree. It is easy to mark growth in a very young tree; young trees require to be very often transplanted to prevent their heads growing beyond their roots. The roots should increase before the branches. It is as I increase in divine growth that I the more need Christ and find Christ for everything. The more I grow, the more I seek Him, because I feel I want more; and the more I find, the more I seek; hence seeking Him is the real mark of growth.