The Fast and Easy Way to Spiritual Super Stardom

Our society is a short-cut, quick-fix, one-and-done kind of culture. In fact, if we could get a pill to fix everything that was wrong with us, we'd take a shortcut to the pharmacy & grumble about the line, and complain that it'd take a few hours to see results. We want fast; we want easy, so I'm going to give it to you. Here's the fastest, easiest way to becoming a spiritual Super Star:

Our society is a short-cut, quick-fix, one-and-done kind of culture. In fact, if we could get a pill to fix everything that was wrong with us, we'd take a shortcut to the pharmacy & grumble about the line, and complain that it'd take a few hours to see results. We want fast; we want easy, so I'm going to give it to you. Here's the fastest, easiest way to becoming a spiritual Super Star:

Step 1: Slowly, consistently grow over a lifetime of God-given experiences.

There you go–can't get any shorter than a one-step process!

Okay, so that was pretty flippant. I apologize if you feel cheated, but don't mistake this for irony or deceit. This really is the fastest and easiest way to spiritual maturity. Here's why:

Fast

There are no shortcuts to maturity. You have to walk through every lesson God wants to teach you. If you detour toward a self-directed shortcut, you'll end up having to loop around and go through the lesson you were supposed to tackle earlier. The fastest way to learn, then, is to stick with the mandatory curriculum, to work out your salvation in awe and reverance.

Lean into what God's showing you. Rather than focusing on the issue in context of your plans or desires, try focusing on your character and relationship with God within the context of the issue. Stretch yourself in faith, obedience, godliness.  Pray, observe, yield, submit. Seek wisdom and marinate in scripture. Learn to listen to the Holy Spirit. Try to look at your life from God's perspective. Whatever the day brings–good, bad, surprising or mundane, take it as an opportunity to grow. Over a lifetime, this consistent habit will be the express lane to maturity.

Easy

If you've been a believer for a while, you already know that sometimes, God takes you places you don't want to go. Like to the mirror to see your sin. Or to the desert to walk through suffering and heartache. Or the bench, when you're aching to get in the game. Some of those places feel like they're deep under water–you can't breathe and it's all pressure and dark and cold. Other places are filled with grief or anger or disappointment. Valleys of the shadow of death, valleys of depression, or just valleys of boredom and discontent.

Faced with a trip to one of these, you can run, resist, rebel. But as the cliche goes, there's an easy way, and a hard way. Fighting God feels like it'll keep you from that dreaded destination, but the trip's only delayed, not cancelled.

The easy way is to slowly and consistently grow in these places. You face them, walk through them, letting God protect you as you go. They're not fun–not places you'd pick if you were given the choice. But God leads and accompanies you, His beloved child, to these special places where you'll know Him like never before.

The fast and easy path is the daily choice to accept whatever God presents as an opportunity to grow closer to him and closer to His image. It's not a quick fix; it'll take a more than a lifetime to fully learn to love one another, to stop grumbling and turn from sin, to pour out our ambitions and self-centeredness and be filled with Christ-centerness.

But this is the way to extraordinary faith, humble love, godly character. It's the path of submission and unity, blamelessness and purity–the fast and easy way to shine like (super) stars in the universe.