Swimming and My Spiritual Growth

This may be a new thing to you but I took a swimming class in junior college.  I could already swim but I needed two P. E. credits and swimming fit my schedule.  I got in the pool that first day and almost died.  I'm not sure I even owned a pair of swim goggles.  Over time I listened to the teacher.  I improved on my stroke.  I learned a few more strokes and at the end of the semester I swam a mile.  Yep, the final exam was to swim a mile and I'm pretty sure I ended up doing it in just under forty-five minutes.

Well as I have grown older and I used to swim quite frequently for my cardio workout but that had diminished over the years.  Just recently (like last week) Charity had bought some goggles at Costco so I figured I would take a swim at the gym.  I did my normal workout and then headed to the pool.  When I got done with my first two laps I realized that I am out of shape.  After swimming six laps I was standing in the water, straining to get my breath and it hit me: "This is what is like when we fail to grow spiritually."

Many of us have had great times in our live that we have grown spiritually and we have seen growth in our lives.  God has found favor in our lives and has used us to do some amazing things for His glory.  Then, for whatever reason it may be, we stop growing spiritually.  We get married, have children, or just decide that is not something we are going to focus on in our lives anymore.

Something happens in our lives and we want to be back at that place we were in live.  We realize how desperate we are for the relationship with The Lord that we once had and we jump back in and try to pick up where we left off.  The sad thing is we are out of shape; spiritually.  We are spiritually out of shape and cannot maintain what we once we able to do... and that becomes hard for many of us.

This is a reminder for me that I have been out of shape for swimming and that will take time to get back to where I was but I was also convicted that I have gotten spiritually out of shape and need to spend more time listening to the voice of God in my life.

Remember what it says: 

“Today when you hear his voice, 

don’t harden your hearts 

as Israel did when they rebelled.” Hebrews 3:15 (NLT)