Article April 18, 1994 Issue

Stick to your Principle!

If spiritual growth seems elusive no matter how hard we work, maybe we need a better sense of what governs this growth

Julie Crandall Foskett

A Neighbor of mine had a vine with orchid-like blooms that she hoped would grow to cover her new lath arbor. The vine was carefully planted; its young shoots were twined in an upward direction from the arbor's base. But it sprouted several other shoots that began to grow away from the arbor. Though this hindered the vine's upward growth, my neighbor said she couldn't bring herself to prune them because she loved their beautiful flowers.

Some weeks later I noticed that the vine's growth on the arbor had almost come to a standstill, but the straying shoots had multiplied into a droopy tangle that clogged an adjacent walkway. Indulging a fondness for a few short-lived blossoms, my neighbor had consciously abandoned the pruning that would have brought her to her goal of a lovely vine-covered arbor.

The experience illustrates why we may seem to fail when we set spiritual goals for ourselves, goals that call for pruning away self-centered traits and nurturing conformity to more God-controlled living. The spiritual growth we greatly yearn for may be deflected from our grasp if we lose sight of the real purpose of such growth. It is not simply to make human existence more convenient or pleasant. The purpose of spiritual growth is to demonstrate that God is man's very Life, his divine Principle.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

In next week's Sentinel—