I often use quotes from Pastor Jack Freed’s blog, Jack’s Winning Words, as my inspiration for what I write here. Today I’m using what might be considered to be a trite little phrase that I recently saw on a little plaque in a gift store – “You Grow Through What You Go Through”.
It is easy to just toss that little phrase off or to read it and not give it much thought, but then that would make for a very short post here. When I read it in the gift shop that was my initial reaction – cute little phrase. Giving it more thought, there are so many more dimensions to it than one initially considers.
One grows intellectually by just accumulating and organizing the facts and experiences that one encounters during a normal day. Hopefully one learns from both successes and mistakes and thus grows as a rational person.
It’s hard to even imagine living a life so devoid of challenges and failures that one has no successes or mistakes to learn from. It is perhaps a little less difficult to image a person who does not learn from their mistakes and keeps repeating them. Do you know anyone like that?
What I ended up thinking about is how we grow in our faith based upon what we go through in life. Few of us probably end the day with a prayer thanking God for another wonderful, conflict and problem free day. More likely we may thank God for the strength and perseverance he gave us to get though the day and pray for His help with tomorrow.
It is the day-to-day things that we go through that helps us grow in our relationship with God. Those trials and setbacks help us see the limits of our own ability to control things in life. Eventually they bring us to the point where we are ready to surrender to God’s love and state out loud for ourselves and Him to hear – “Not my will, but thy will be done.”
Growing in your faith by coming to that conclusion in your life is one of the most liberating things that you can accomplish. It is a faith threshold that once crossed frees you to focus on the things that you can impact and give to God those things over which you really have no control. It also allows you to forgive yourself by accepting God’s forgiveness into your life – see my post Let God be Your Eraser.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that of you have faith, nothing bad will ever happen to you. Rather the Bible tells us that if we have faith, there is nothing that we cannot face, because we have God on our side. So, one can view the trials and tribulations that are a part of normal life as providing opportunities for us to grow in our faith. Face each test with the thought, “We’ve got this” (you and God together) and use what you go through to grow your faith.
In your faith, you really do “Grow through what you go through”, so get our that and grow your faith today.
NormsMilfordBlog 
Thanks again, Norm, for a good response. Itâs Appreciated. Happy Valentineâs Day to you and Carolyn.