Ice Cream and Spiritual Growth

The other day I got some ice cream, homemade coffee ice cream with heath bar chunks in it. I had a decision to make. Would I like it in a regular flat bottomed cone or in a tapered waffle cone?

That sent my mind down memory lane to a professor who used an ice cream cone to teach a spiritual truth. The tapered end of the ice cream cone was likened to the point of spiritual decision. It could be the beginning place of repentance, forgiveness and freedom from our past acts of sin. Or it could be choosing to live a fully surrendered life to develop the character of Christ, walking in the Spirit. The work of the Spirit in those moments of decision in either repentance or full sanctification is precise. It deals specifically with beginning a new relationship with God.

Because we speak of the point of decision and emphasize it, preachers, teachers and our own presuppositions can unintentionally lead us to expect all the implications for living out the Christian life are done at the moment of decision. In reality the Holy Spirit downloads into our lives his transforming presence and connects us to the Father but the application and action of this experience requires us to be a willing partner working out this new power in everyday life. There is another reason we like the idea of one and done at the point of decision. We prefer the idea of instant. We do start out in the context of immaturity after all. It would be easier if we didn’t have to work out our faith. Looking at our analogy how would it work if we thought the ice cream cone was only its tapered tip? Our ice cream cone needs two things: the expanding size of the cone to be filled and someone to eat the ice cream and the cone.

There are no shortcuts to maturity. It is true God can and will make us clean and holy in a moment when we choose to ask him into our lives. But it is also true the motive of love placed within us takes a lifetime to unfold. New standards of behavior become the norm. We are challenged to think of others differently and to do life differently. We call this discipleship. “I am crucified with Christ therefore I no longer live, Jesus Christ now lives in me. The life that I now live I live through faith in God’s own Son who loved and gave his life for me.” That’s a pretty radical change. And in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit we find we can begin to live out these changes. But we also find in our humanness we must learn obedience even through suffering and that we can live in deep reverence (love) of the Father and this growth in relationship spills out in everyday behavior.

Because there are no shortcuts to maturity, we must come face to face with past emotional pain often derived from those who were the most significant to us. Perhaps we could say the sins of the fathers visit down unto the even the third and fourth generations. Within the context of temperament, heredity, environment and our own subculture, we each find we developed coping mechanisms to which we may be blind. We truly asked Jesus for forgiveness and it was given. We truly are now his children. We come to grasp the truth of full surrender to deal with our character not just our behavior, yet for many something just seems to misfire. We discover not everything was dealt with in an instant. Yes we are the Lord’s, but something like healing forgiveness needs to happen within us, something that allows us to establish new patterns of coping. Unless we understand a decision point is the beginning and not the end of our life in Christ and in the fullness of the Spirit, we are going to struggle with the ability to live compassionately with ourselves and others.

One of the most difficult things about living in Christian communities is to understand how to live loving our neighbor as ourselves. Kingdom living is a skill to develop. What if people who claim to love Jesus, claim to have surrendered to the Holy Spirit yet STILL have hurts and struggles that result in outbreaks of contradictory behaviors and confusions? What if their personalities and quirks cause us to judge them harshly, to be impatient with them and to be critical of them? What if the survival tactics of the past rise up under pressure that confuse and discourage us and unknown to us they are discouraged by it too? They are not fakes, phonies or hypocrites. They are people like you and me that have hurts and scars and wounds that interfere with ordinary everyday living. People just like us. And the Healer has hope for them IF they will push through the suffering with deep reverence and trust. The combination of fear, and deep hurt combined with the expectation for all the workings of the Holy Spirit to be instantaneous can be a real barrier.

It is true that by their fruits we shall know them and ourselves, but it is also true by our roots we can know and not judge them and ourselves in the sense of bitter criticism. Some who come through this journey become wounded healers. NO we are not to continue in sin that grace might grow more, but all growth and Christlikeness is not equal. Think about habits that you were delivered from at the beginning of your walk. For some deliverance was instantaneous. For others it was a period of time. Think through the lessons of grace you are learning and applying in the mid-season of your walk. Be aware that you are not done learning to grow in wisdom and stature with God and man. It is a life long journey and just when you think you have found your footing, it is time extend that same grace and wisdom to mentor others.

Let’s go back to the ice cream shop. The tapered end of the cone is the beginning of the structure of the cone. It enables the scoops of delicious ice cream to be delivered until it is full and rising above your cone. Unless you do your part it becomes a sticky mess nobody likes. So hop to it Skippy and LICK IT!