Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

Normally, the outdoorsy image of choice for spiritual growth is mountain climbing. You can picture it - new Christian at the bottom of the mountain, mature Christian near the top. But perhaps we should be looking at it as spelunking.

Spelunking is cave exploration, and it's another way to think about spiritual growth. Instead of thinking of growth in Christ as a climb up a mountain, let's think of it as a trip into a cave. When a mountain climbing expedition gets higher and higher (and as Christians, we might be tempted to think, better and better, however we define better0, a caving exploration goes deeper and deeper, exploring the undiscovered depths. Spiritual growth is not about climbing a mountain, getting better, and therefore needing Christ less and less. Spiritual growth is about discovering more and bigger caverns of need into which more and more of Christ's grace can flow. We think spiritual growth is about height, when spiritual growth is about width. We think it's about the heights we've attained when, in truth, it's about the depth of our need.

True growth as a Christian involves recognizing that there is always another cavern to explore. There's always another crevasse of self-centeredness or stalactite of jealousy. The light of Jesus shines into deeper and darker corners and proclaims, "Yes, I can redeem this, too." True growth as a Christian means realizing that all the climbing we need to do is down into the depths.

We hear, "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life," and we think, "Got it! Simple! What's next?" The Bible answers, "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation" (1 Peter 2:2). It is this milk, the simplicity of the gospel message, that grows us into a deeper awareness of our desperation and therefore a deeper awareness of our deliverance.

-Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,