Growth

Are you growing?  Is the Lord becoming more for you, and you becoming less?  As I prepare a short workshop for teen girls and their moms this weekend, Maggie and I have come up with some means that God uses to grow us.  I wonder if these ring true for you as they do for us. 

God grows us in grace through bringing hard things, even suffering, into our lives, whereby we either grow in trusting Him or in bitterness towards Him. 

We also grow in Him when we are obedient in the small things.  Can I do this one act of obedience?  Can I deny myself in this one small area of my life?  Each minute obedience grows me in Christ. 

God grows us in knowledge of Himself through time, lots of time, in His Word.  The more we read of Him and His ways, the more we know Him.  My favorite times in the Word are when I spend a week or more meditating on a single passage; each day brings fresh views of His kindness and majesty. 

We are called to grow in Him, but the growth "comes from God" (See 1 Corinthians 3:6, 7).  What ways of growing can you add to our short list?