I spoke with a friend recently who implied, perhaps without intending to do so, that my story and my growth in wisdom and understanding are at an end. This friend was, of course, a young person, and I am, to her, a very old person. Because I am not becoming more progressive in my political ideas and more culturally attuned in my thoughts and beliefs, I must be stuck in the past and somewhat irrelevant. I am not growing.

A lot of that first paragraph consists of what I read into and sensed from my friend’s attitude, but I don’t think it’s inaccurate. There is an idea abroad in the culture that if you are not moving in a progressive direction in your beliefs and convictions, you are not growing. Conservatives are assumed to be mired in a web of out-dated and prejudicial beliefs that are destined to die. In fact, as far as the life of the mind and the spirit are concerned, conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, are half-dead already.

But I say, along with Mr. Twain, that the report of my death is an exaggeration. I am not becoming more unsure and doubting and open-to-all-comers in my beliefs. I no longer feel the need to revisit the intellectual and emotional struggles and insecurities that I went through and that were resolved (by my own work and the work of the Holy Spirit) years ago. I believe in certain things by faith and by decision, according to the preponderance of the evidence that I have been able to see and evaluate. I believe in God, in Jesus Christ His only Son, in the Christian church, in the authority of Scripture, in Christian marriage and family, in life, liberty, and the pursuit of joy in a free society. I believe in representative democracy with all its flaws and in a free market economy with all its limitations and inequities as the best political and economic systems geared to produce the most human flourishing in a broken world. I have seen very little that inclines me to doubt those fundamental truths and much that leads me to trust them.

But that does not mean that I have ceased to grow. I believe that, with much hesitation, vacillation, and indecision, three steps back and then four or five ahead, I am growing in the right direction, thanks to the Holy Spirit within me. I am growing in trust in a good God who will make all things right and just. I am growing in peace and acceptance of what is and what will be. I am growing in firmness of conviction and courage to face whatever may come, whether it be pandemic or hurricane or misunderstanding or disappointment or grief. I am growing in the knowledge that God is enough, that the life He gives is abundant and filled with joy, and that I am allowed to rest in Him. I am growing in prayer that believes even when the answers are not seen. I am growing in the assurance that even death itself will not put an end to the growth that I will experience in Him because Jesus Christ has promised me eternal life through His name.

If my friend sees me as old and set in my ways, perhaps she is right, in a certain sense. Nevertheless, just wait! “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (I John 3:2) And that, my dear young friend, is growth indeed!