WE come to the next to last chapter of Principles of Spiritual Growth by Miles Stanford, to Chapter 17 titled Cultivation. AS I began to read this chapter, I had to smile at the very first sentence, “There can be little question concerning the importance of balance, so vital in the mechanical, physical, aesthetic and spiritual realms.” I have become such a firm believer in this fact as an absolute fundamental truth and axiom in the strongest terms, that it warmed my heart to see our author open this chapter this way.
I CAN recall my Edison days when we would do a “balance run” on one of our massive steam turbines after performing a maintenance overhaul. The operation was so tedious and painstaking; I can’t even begin to describe it. Yet, without the patient and arduous participation of all hands in the process, those turbine/generators would hammer themselves to destruction if they were the lease bit out of balance. Those turbine/generators were constantly monitored with vibration detectors that would instantaneously take a turbine off line if the slightest imbalance occurred. That experience along with working on auto engines in my early days has truly impressed upon me the importance of “balance.”
IN truth, this fact concerning balance is a reality in every mechanical device, and throughout the universe. It is true concerning health, and how we take care of ourselves. It is true in agricultural and growing things. It is true in music, sports – literally all things. And it is more than just a metaphor for the spiritual life; it is an absolute for the Christian Life as well. I do not think it is a stretch to say that every doctrinal error and eventual heresy can be attributed to a theological imbalance. And the same can be said for any life that drifts off course. To remain properly centered is to remained properly balanced.
APART from that however, there is something odd about this chapter. But I’m going to leave that observation for next week. But for now, let’s get to this importance element for spiritual growth.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas. 1:2
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Chapter 17—Cultivation
There can be little question concerning the importance of balance, so vital in the mechanical, physical, aesthetic and spiritual realms. Faulty balance often results in disintegration and possible devastation to the surrounding area.
Our self-life is out of balance—it is all one-sided. Like the universal Tea Party:
I had a little tea party One afternoon at three; ‘Twas very small, three guests in all, Just I, myself and me. Myself ate up the sandwiches, While I drank up the tea, ‘Twas also I who ate the pie and passed the cake to me.
Husbandman that He is, the beginning of God’s cultivation of the hungry-hearted believer is downward. Patiently, persistently and painfully our Father digs down into the recesses of self, more and more fully revealing to us just what we are, and are not, in ourselves. His reason for this preparation is twofold: that the Lord Jesus might be free to manifest Himself in us and then through us for the sake of others—growing and sharing. “The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isa. 58:11).
Each of us must be thoroughly cultivated before He can effectively cultivate others through us. It is not that there will be no service for us until we are spiritually mature but that most of our service on the way to maturity is for our own development, not so much that of others.
….to be continued
