I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Milestones.
The word “milestone” has to do with how far one has traveled. …”a stone by the side of a road showing the distance in miles to a given place”.
Therefore, we use this term to keep track important moments of progress in one’s life. Measurements of how far we’ve come either in age, or personal growth.
If we are in Christ, we also have spiritual milestones. Moments on which we can reflect gauging how far we’ve come in our walk with Christ. The moment we accepted Christ as our Savior, then another when we publicly shared this decision by being baptized. Other milestones our Christian life might include are the first time we shared the Gospel with someone, or when we completed our first “365 day plan of reading the Bible all the way through” (still struggling with this one), or when we taught our first Bible Study, or worked in Vacation Bible School. Then, those moments when we witnessed God answering our prayers. The time we memorized that tough passage of Scripture. Or how about when we learned to pray for God’s will and not our own.
These are all an indication of how much we’ve grown. It is important for us to look back over our lives thus far and recall the milestones. We need to periodically examine our journey. Are we satisfied with where we are at this point? Are we still growing and realizing there are many more milestones to reach or have we become stagnant? Have we gotten complacent with our walk just trying to convince ourselves that our relationship with Christ is just fine the way it is?
We are to be constantly seeking, learning, and growing. In Philippians Chapter 2, we read…
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Paul clearly states for us how we should live this life. We are to be Working/Growing/Changing in to His likeness. God is working in us for his good purpose. He isn’t sitting idly by just waiting for the day He calls us home and we shouldn’t be either.
So, when you look back five years from now, what milestones will you be able to say you’ve reached?
Pray and ask the Lord to help you continue to grow in Him. Ask Him to give you the desire to grow, to learn, to change. He’ll answer those prayers. Promise!