Last year I wrote two pretty popular blog posts that started to dive into spiritual growth. You can read them here:

• What does “going deep” actually mean? | Part 1
• What does “going deep” actually mean? | Part 2

Lately, I’ve been thinking on this topic again as we at 3DM continue to have really significant conversations with pastors around the world about spiritual growth. To the point: How does spiritual growth happen?

First things first…what is spiritual growth? Specifically, I think it speaks to a person growing in the Character and Competency of Jesus. It’s the movement from immaturity to maturity (though recognizing we never really “arrive” in this lifetime).

One thing that has been rattling around my head the last few weeks is about the junk that people have in their lives that they can’t seem to get rid of…things that control them, even in very subtle yet powerful ways. For each person, there are things that, no matter how long they’ve been a disciple of Jesus, continue to rule them. They just can’t shake that habit, that thinking pattern, that sin that overpowers them from time to time.

One prevailing thought it to attack it directly and root it out. To be sure, there is wisdom in this, particularly as the New Testament often talks about getting rid of things, finding the root and pulling it out. However, what I’m concerned with is the process. How does this actually happen?

For while we can pinpoint it and really go after it, my observation is that this only goes so far. So another piece of it that’s involved has to do with indirect effort. In other words, there are spiritual disciplines you can do that actually give you more power through the work of the Holy Spirit to root it out and gain control over something that, previous to this, you were powerless to.

But I don’t want to dig too much into that. I think Mike Breen did an excellent job addressing this idea in this blog post.

I want to suggest a third piece of the puzzle for how we see these things slowly removed from our life…an insight that I believe is enormous for understanding how spiritual growth happens.

You see, at the heart of it, we are all selfish people. We just are! We consistently find ourselves at the center of our own universe. We seek to protect what is ours, slipping into obvious and nuanced models of self-preservation. And while I think these first two pieces of the puzzle are essential (go directly after the root + go at it indirectly through spiritual disciplines), if that’s all we do, we are actually involved in a kind of narcissistic spirituality. Does that make sense? If that’s what we do, it’s still all about us and God getting rid of my junk. One of the most common myths about spiritual growth is that what you really need is to spend more time focusing on yourself.

But I’ve noticed something else in my life (and in the life of those I’m investing in at the moment) that may bring a third puzzle piece into the situation. And here’s what it is: When we invest in the lives of others, the Holy Spirit is able to slowly get rid of those things in our life as we serve as as conduit to his work in the world.

Allow me to share a visual that may explain this (WARNING: I’m the worst artist EVER):

What I continue to so is this: When I invest in the lives of other people, I’m going to them with empty hands…because I don’t really have anything of worth to give them. I can only give them what the Father puts in my hand. Well…this is a profoundly spiritual act. It is an emptying of myself and an asking of the Lord to give me something.

What I am doing is serving as a portal, a channel, between heaven and earth. The Holy Spirit uses me as a willing vessel, putting something in my hands to invest and sow into the life of someone else. This picture tries to show the process of what this does in me. If there were an imaginary pipe inside of me that served as this portal, this pipe has all sorts of junk in it that the Holy Spirit has to get through in order to put something in my hands.

But as I empty myself, as I make myself available to serve someone else, for the spiritual good of someone else, as the Holy Spirit pours himself into me through that pipeline, it works like a kind of Drano.

I notice that the things that have rooted themselves deep inside of me slowly start to loosen. They have less hold on me. The sin that can rule me begins to recede.

This is why, I think, one of the essentials to spiritual growth isn’t simply individual acts of spiritual disciplines that are me-focused (though stil necessary). I’ve experienced probably the most profound times of spiritual growth as I’ve entered into times of real, personal investment into the lives of the few people I’m discipling.

Sometimes it’s not focusing on the issues and focusing on others that produce the most spiritual growth. Clearly this shouldn’t surprise us. But when someone says to us, “I just feel really stuck right now. I feel like I’m a bit stagnant.”

Is our first response, “OK. Are you investing in anyone right now? That might tell us something.”