Spiritual growth from a positive perspective

In our organization, we use visual management to seek to continuously improve everything we do. For instance, we use three colors, to rate how we are doing in many areas of work. Green means we are doing well and no changes are needed, yellow means that we can do better and red means that we have significant opportunity for improvement. Notice that yellow and red are actually positive colors, not negative, because they give us opportunity to improve. We like and look for yellow and reds.

Think about this in your spiritual life. Our goal in our relationship with Jesus is to become like Him in every way possible: hearts that understand and live out grace, minds that think like He thinks, priorities that are aligned with His and relationships that reflect his love for other. Now we know we are a long ways from where we want to be and it is easy to become discouraged when we discover another area of life that needs reformation.

But consider this: Every time we realize we have areas of our lives that need to be brought under His purview, every time we surrender another room or closet to him, we have the opportunity to become more like Him. In other words, as He chooses to reveal areas of life that need our attention along with the Holy Spirit's power, He is giving us the opportunity to become more like him. It is not a failure, but an opportunity. And every opportunity to become more like Jesus ought to be celebrated and pursued because He is our ultimate goal!

In His grace, He does not reveal all of our "reds" and "yellows" at once but bit by bit, He makes them known to us. Each one is an opportunity to align my heart in a new way toward His. 

I don't always like what the Holy Spirit reveals to me but I do relish the opportunity to bring my life and heart into greater alignment with His. Jesus is our source and our goal so the yellows and reds that He reveals to me are a wonderful opportunity for repentance and realignment toward my ultimate objective: A heart like His.