Its great to be back from holidays this week having had a refreshing break. While on holiday I had the joy of cutting and stacking at least 6 tons of firewood, helped a mate out by shovelling 42 ton of hard metal and sand and laid 110 square metres of paving. That’s what I call a holiday! Hilery wasn’t quite so impressed by what I call a holiday but she faithfully helped me stack all the firewood. One of the milestones I also achieved was to clean out the recycled timber in our garage and put both our vehicles in there. That’s quite a mammoth task that has taken us four years to achieve! Another task that I achieved just before Christmas was to lay almost 70 square metres of large format paving in our driveway. I’m not sure how many tons they weigh but I do remember pulling up every single paver from the person’s driveway who I’d bought them from almost 5 years ago.

The neighbours have always come over to inspect and comment on my work after a job is completed whether its been cleaning out the garage, laying the driveway, building the front stairs, building retaining walls or building the fence. Each is a milestone and is to be discussed, assessed and commented on. I’m grateful for the feedback which is nearly always complementary but I have noticed a pattern of everyone steering clear until the jobs done, then there are any number of experts who begin to tell me how I could have done it better and more efficiently.

I’ve learned many lessons about life as I’ve worked on each project but one thing stands out. Anything worthwhile takes time and effort to achieve. Unless of course you’re wealthy or save hard in which case you can pay someone else to do your renovations and driveway and whatever else needs doing. You can then have you’re driveway laid in two weeks instead of it taking you five years!  The thing that we cannot pay someone else to do however, no matter how wealthy we might be or how hard we might save, is our spiritual growth. Spiritual growth toward maturity in Christ takes all of us time and effort. We each must take the time to invest in our spiritual growth by spending time reading the Bible, disciplining ourselves to pray and diligently serving in ministry. There are no shortcuts and there is no opportunity to pay someone else to do the growing for us.

This week we begin considering our focus for the first semester on a series of Bible studies called the E100 CHALLENGE. One hundred days of reading the Bible each day and praying in a systematic and disciplined way. It will take time and effort but it is an important step toward spiritual growth that will hopefully move us closer to Jesus and therefore to becoming more like Jesus in our attitudes and actions. One thing is for certain, we all need to change, to mature, to grow up in Christ, no matter how old we are or how long we’ve been a Christian.

Spiritual growth is one project that will never quite be completed this side of heaven so we must persevere, encourage one another and keep our eye on the goal of what Christianity is really all about – learning more about Jesus and growing to be like Him more and more. Maybe you could do a spiritual health check by asking a friend, family member or spouse whether they’ve seen you grow closer to Jesus or away from Him? Which is another thing I’ve learned about life from my projects, once they’re done everyone what can see what’s been done, both good and bad. Remember the project of our spiritual life is also on display for all to see.