The Journey to Purpose Part Three Growth

Hey, my lovelies how are you all? I trust you are keeping well and safe and just thanking God in all seasons! Remember we spoke about it in part two of this series. Now can we just take time to appreciate God, I don’t know about you, but I have been blessed! Wow, it has been an amazing two weeks of light and revelation. Now if you have been following the series, I would really like to hear from you, how has it been for you? leave your comments or send me an email and if you are just joining us I welcome you to the party. Please feel free and make yourself at home, I would suggest you go through part one and part two of this series before you proceed to this one; so that you get the context. 

In part two we looked at how we respond to our ploughing season, we looked at four major ways which were: 

1. Obedience 
2. Gratitude 
3. Comparison 
4. And not looking back 

We also looked at the children of Israel as our case study and how their response affected their time in the wilderness and their journey to the promised land.  Part three is all about GROWTH! We will be looking at what growth is, how it looks like, how it is measured and your response (what is required of you). This is the time you get your journals ready and hot drink lol let us dive right in. 

What is Growth?

It is important to know what growth is to be able to understand what kind of growth is happening in your life. I took the pleasure to actually look up the term, and reading the different meanings of the word growth actually helped me understand the different phases to it. These are some of the meanings that stood out to me personally: 

• the process of developing physically, mentally, or spiritually.
• the process of increasing in size.
• the process of increasing in amount, value, or importance.

So, these are just three of many that I picked from, which helps us understand the different types of growth. Now I actually want to draw your attention to something. When I was reading these definitions, the Holy Spirit highlighted an important word to me – PROCESS, growth is a process in simple but yet powerful terms. Process is a series of change, and change is not always comfortable. So, what am I saying? for the purpose of this series this is how we will define growth – growth is a process of uncomfortable change Wow! Amazing! this I believe is a praise moment! Therefore, beloved the moment you start to feel uncomfortable your growth has begun. 

What does Growth look like?

Now that we know what growth is, what does it look like? What are the characteristics of growth? I will just list a few of what I have been experiencing in my own growth season and hopefully you can relate to them yourself. 

1. The Stretch – this is probably one of the first things you will start to notice in your growth season. You will laterally feel like you are physically being stretched and this is what brings the discomfort, you feel like you have been thrown in deep waters and you are swimming against the tide! Embrace this discomfort it’s a sign of growth.
2. Increase in capacity – this is also another sign of growth; you actually begin to notice an increase in your capacity. For instance, when I embarked on my spiritual growth journey, I started to realise I could pray longer than before and stay longer with the word of God without tiring out. You find that you are able to sit with things longer, be more productive, you are able to handle a bit more than you used to do before. This is also a good way to measure growth. 
3. Opportunities start opening up – now this is usually tricky because the opportunities might not necessary be what you have been praying for. They are actually opportunities that allow the stretching to happen and opportunities that let you serve. It is very easy to pass on these opportunities if you don’t know they are part of your growth, because they are mostly going to be out of your comfort zone!

How to measure Growth

We all know that in order to know something is growing it has to be measured. The three characteristics I mentioned above are a good way to measure your growth. When you are on a purpose journey, growth can be very tricky to measure because we are always looking for the physical outcomes or manifestations first. We don’t measure the growth that produces the fruits but the growth that is produced by competence and this is where we miss it, growth is from the inside out not outside in. That is why God can literally tear down expressions of your competence to work on the expression of your character so that you can be the person fit for the vision. We need to learn to measure who we are becoming more than what we are doing. What fruits are growing in you? 

The best way to measure your growth is through journaling and paying attention to your thought process and your heart. For example, are you becoming more patient? Are you letting go of offences easily? are you kinder, more compassionate, considerate etc those are the fruits that play a big part on your character! Your competence doesn’t define you, your character does! I have paid for an expensive service before solely based on that person’s character and this is truth. Your character will search you out.

Be healed from thinking you are only growing when you see material evidence. You are growing from your roots and your roots are important because they form the base of your foundation.  When your foundation is strong you will be able to stand when you get to the top but when it is weak you will come down quicker than you rose!

Your response (what is required of you)

I am sure by now you are probably saying why is there always a response involved? Well, that is because as humans we are responsive, however we all respond differently to situations based on a lot of factors such as background, upbringing, mindset etc. We are either proactive or reactive, so my question to you today is how do you respond to this growth season? Are you being proactive or reactive? For you to get the best out of this season, you would have to take the proactive approach, you are going to have to be intentional because growth is uncomfortable. 

• When God is asking you to do something just do it
• When opportunities to serve present themselves don’t hesitate even if they are out of your comfort zone! 
• Journal journal, journal! I can’t say this enough- it’s a good way to track your growth and document insights that the Holy Spirit is bringing to you! 
• Ask the Holy Spirit for HELP! This is so big and I can so testify, I had a lot to do and time wasn’t really on my side however, the Holy Spirit said to me to maximise my morning but your girl loves sleep and waking up as early as 5am was an impossible mission. I was the queen of snooze; I would have like 5 alarms and snooze all of them! But I knew I had to develop discipline and get my act right, so I asked the Holy Spirit for help and He did!!! This story is an entire post on its own and I don’t want to go into too much detail. If you want me to share a little more on this then let me know in the comments and I will do just that. 

And lastly embrace the process it’s bringing out the best version of you! wow this has been heavy don’t know if you guys felt it. Congratulations for reading till the end, that is growth! Your capacity is increasing yaay. I am happy for you and I believe God has big plans for you. 

I will see you guys in part four don’t forget to comment let me know how it has been going, and if you have topics you want me to cover let me know. I want to serve you guys better so bring in the feedback. 

Love always Lisa Maxwell 

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