Becoming Steadfast

Ever since I started working at Wesley I have grown in ways that I never thought I would, I have seen healing in my life I once thought was impossible, and I have experienced things I thought would never happen. I have never been more free.

Lately I have been thinking about what has been the “best” area I have experienced growth or freedom in. At first I thought of many of the more immediate ways that God has healed me or spoken to me. The time that he healed and repaired my mind in an instant or when I received a word that I would one day be a writer and that He wanted me to pursue my dreams. I thought of the growth I have experienced as a person, how I now know that I am loved and can trust and love others. It could have been the community that I have been blessed with here at Wesley. The list could go on for some time. However, the more I have thought about it, the more I have come to realize that the growth that I am the most thankful for is recent: becoming steadfast.

At this point I want to establish that I am unbelievably thankful for every single way that the Lord has grown me, healed me, and provided for me. Every instance of the Lord impacting my life is something I am grateful for and without every other thing that God has done in my life, I would not be where I am. However, at the same time I am more thankful for where God has taken me through that growth.

Being steadfast, mature, consistent, or whatever one may call it is not something that I had never heard too much about, although I may just not have been listening. It is not something that I discuss, or heard others discuss, when we sat down and talked about faith. I have told and heard so many testimonies of healing and freedom, which are very important, but it was not common for me to discuss steadfastness or spiritual maturity with someone else. The most obvious reason being that it is not exciting. A testimony of maturity and consistency in someone’s life does not sound that something that would hype up a crowd of people, but I think that it is one of the most Christ like qualities that we can undertake. I think that the growth we experience as our relationship with the Lord deepens is leading us to become steadfast.

I believe steadfastness to be an enormous sign of growth in my personal life because it is the exact opposite of what I was when I was not fully committed to walking with God. I used to be a flakey, noncommittal person. I was almost never faithful with what was given to me and I was near incapable of following through with anything. In that time, I was the complete opposite of what Jesus represented to me in his time on Earth. I loved selfishly and I was incapable of forgiving, just to name a couple. However, this is not the state of my life now, I am not perfect by any means, but I am nowhere near the same person.

The transformation was made possible by God moving in my life when I opened myself up fully to His love and freedom. It took years, and will continue on until the end of my days. Like all growth, be it personal or spiritual, it takes time. Maturity is not an overnight delivery.

Author | Nathan DeYoung