Today as I walked through the house something caught my eye and my thoughts. We have a doorway in our house etched with pencil marks. Every few months as the kids were growing up, Steve (my hubby) would have Jessica and Stephen Jr. cram their heels against the wall, stretch their neck as long as possible, and he would mark how much they had grown during that time period. Some times there were only slight changes or no change but other times there were great spurts of growth. Finally, at about 5´ 6 ½” – Jessica´s marks stop and at about 6´ 4” - Stephen´s stop.

        I looked at that doorway and thought about how excited the kids would get if they had grown lots, especially Stephen Jr. He wanted to be REAL tall. I began to wonder what it would look like if, instead of physical growth, we could have marked our family´s “spiritual growth.” What would the doorway look like then? At some measures our growth would have skyrocketed because we were hungry to know more about the Lord. We were involved in helping others and telling others about Christ. But I´m ashamed to say there would be other measures where the growth spurts slowed or hardly moved at all. Dark times when we were doing as we pleased and probably ignoring God.

        On February 21st of this year I had been saved for 29 years. Thinking back over these years I realize that we don´t just “GROW OLD” in the Lord, but we must also “GROW UP.” Also we as parents, have the responsibility to make sure that our children are taught this. We need to challenge them not only to begin a relationship with God but to want to GROW in that relationship.