G. R. O. W.

Ok so you're probably wondering why these letters are capitalized and seem to be some kind of abbreviation for something. Part of my training through Child Evangelism Fellowship included training in using the Wordless Book. The last page of the Wordless Book is the green page. When you teach it, the dialogue goes something like this

"Now that you've accepted Jesus as your saviour there's a few things he wants us to do help us get to know him better. This green page reminds me of that, it reminds me that I need to GROW. Because the Bible says that we need to "grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Now on this page there are four corners, and there are four letters to the word grow, so each letter reminds me of something I need to do in order to grow in the knowledge of God. G stands for Going to church, R stands for Reading the Bible, O stands for Obeying God's word and your parents (parents obviously love this one), and W is kind of a big word but it stands for witnessing, which means telling other's about the love of God."

obviously that's a quick version of how one would teach the green page, but there you have it. So why am I going off about some page in some book that you really don't care about? Over the last month and a half I have made immense progress, leaps and bounds. When I think about where I was not that long ago, and where I am now in my spiritual life I am grateful and amazed at the saving power of a loving savior. However, it would seem that my spiritual life has once again plateaued. Now I don't mean that I have lapsed into sin or anything like that, what I mean is that I am no longer seeing any tangible evidence of growth. So what am I doing wrong, and how do I fix it without becoming a legalistic Christian? Part of the problem with me is that so much of the time these things that I have mentioned as being tools of growth were held up as a legalistic standard that if one didn't partake in, one would be considered a heretic and shunned. I'm not kidding you. I remember on one occasion getting in trouble at a school I went to because I was doing my devotions in the evening, rather than the morning, because I have issues getting up early enough in the morning. So I guess what I keep coming back to is how important are these rituals that Christians are required to go through? And, is it possible to be a joyful Christian 100% of the time?