2774 Glen Avenue Altadena, CA 91001

Greetings. Let me ask you a question: How do you view time as an area of growth for your Christian walk? Do you ever think about time as a signpost for growth? In general, do you view time as your friend or your enemy?

In your walk with God, do you view your walk with God as a long marathon or do you view your walk with God as a fast 100 yard dash? How patient or impatient are you with yourself when it comes to areas of growth? Are you looking at your walk with God through the lens of time by being patient with yourself and your growth or are you being impatient by judging your walk with God as not fast enough?

The reason I bring this subject of time up as an ingredient or lens in your walk with God is far too often, Christians can be overly critical of themselves when it comes to time. They often will say harsh words to themselves: ‘Oh, I should be over this sin by now; Oh, I should have memorized these many Bible verses by now; Oh, I should have read this many Christian books by now.’

They are viewing their activities as a Christian through the lens of time concluding they should be further along by now and if not, it is because they are viewing time as something that should be conquered. In other words, how our Christian walk may be rated or appraised becomes based upon how fast or show am I growing or not growing? And if I am not growing, then it must be my fault and I must think of ways to speed up or go faster in my walk with God.

For example, when we go into our back yard or back porch we view a plant we love as healthy if it is growing or not growing. If it is not growing, then we assume or falsely conclude that we have failed in not using the time we have been given to take care of this plant. We may think we need to cut it down or get rid of it or do something to make it grow.

In some ways, this is similar to how we view ourselves. So we look at ourselves and we see lack of fruit or growth or we see failure to get rid of an issue or habit in our life as wrong and we say to ourselves, ‘What is wrong with me? I should be better my now. I should be over my anger issues, my sin habits or character flaws by now. How come I am not improving?’

Time then is not your friend when you start using harsh critical commits on yourself by telling yourself mean things. Instead of recognizing time as your friend, you now view time as your enemy in which you think you should or ought to be better by now and you start to beat yourself up by getting impatient with yourself. Thanks for reading and if you need help, give me a call or view my website. Thanks for reading.