I feel like I’ve been stretched a lot lately–even in the last few days.  We often speak of “growing pains,” and not necessarily just for kids.  We’ll speak of them for businesses and organizations, too.  When we do, though, I wonder if we don’t assume that we’ll eventually grow out of them–that we’ll eventually get to the point where there will be no more growing to do.  Certainly as we move from childhood, through adolescence, and on into adulthood, there is a sense in which that happens–at least physically.  But how about emotionally, mentally, and spiritually?  I’m pretty sure that, in those ways, we never really get beyond them–unless we simply choose to stop growing.

A friend of mine–a very accomplished friend–once said that he never took a job he was ready for, meaning that every time he stepped into something new, there was growth that needed to happen–new skills to be learned, new information to be aquired, new relationships to be developed.  It can be easy for us to reach a point where, for some reason, we think we’ve “arrived.”  I thought that a couple of weeks ago as I sat in a class that I rather quickly–and quite smugly–decided  I could teach–and I probably could have.  But that didn’t change the fact that there was still something for me to learn, and that my sense of having “arrived” could have easily gotten in the way of my learning.  I was being stretched.

There are many ways that new or difficult situations can force us to grow–if we let them.  In my own experience, the pressures and stresses often get to issues of character–greater patience, greater empathy, deeper trust, quicker forgiveness.  True, there are times that I’m prompted to learn new skills in the midst of the stress–sometimes skills I don’t particularly want to learn–but even then it’s probably about character more than anything else, especially the characteristics of humility and teachability.

So, next time you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation or setting, rather than try to figure out how to get out of it, try thinking about what you can gain from it–then let God stretch you to be better, stronger, wiser, and more effective in that situation than you might have otherwise been.