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Exploring the Ordinary Means of Grace  

The Christian life is often more like a garden than it is a wildfire

Once upon a time, I considered myself an amateur thrill seeker. As a young man, I frequently chased the next rush of adrenaline and dopamine. Whether I was snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding down huge hills without a helmet, or skydiving, I was always looking for the next great story and experience to share with my friends. If I wasn’t doing something exciting every day, I felt as though I were wasting my life. Those days are long behind me, I’m afraid. Now I bristle when I see people riding bikes without helmets, and what excites me most is having steak for dinner and getting to bed by 9:30 pm. I still have my share of big and exciting moments, but generally I am content to keep both feet on the ground and my heart rate low.

Though all analogies fail at some point, I do think my own experience speaks into our lives as Christians. At some point in our journey with Jesus, we slowly begin to realize that our sanctification doesn’t always happen through the extraordinary experiences. Most of us have known seasons when our faith seemed full of sunlight, and everything felt extraordinary and new. However, when you ask most Christians, it seems that growth in the Christian life is more like a garden than it is a wildfire. That Christian growth tends to happen when we commit to doing small things that are often overlooked, done over a long period of time. It’s what Eugene Peterson called “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”

Over the next few months, I hope to explore this garden with you and consider how we can cultivate our life with Christ. What we will see is that God has given us certain means through which we can grow in our faith. These are not quick fixes or some novel mystical techniques. Rather, God’s grace comes to us in His Word, by the power of the Spirit, as we receive the Word both personally and together as a Church. Christians have called these “means” in various ways: spiritual disciplines, spiritual habits, and the ordinary means of grace. Through the ordinary means of Bible reading, prayer, corporate worship, and service, God patiently forms us in Godliness. So let us begin where every faithful Christian life begins, not by striving for the extraordinary, but by abiding in Christ and trusting Him to produce lasting fruit through ordinary faithfulness.

This week I want to encourage you to read and meditate on Jesus’ words in John 15:1-11 and ponder what it looks like to abide and bear fruit in Him. May we do so, remembering that the Christian life begins and continues with communion and friendship with Christ.