What Are Others Seeing Growing in You?

There is a question worth sitting with today, one that cuts past the surface of Sunday routines and comfortable Christianity: What do others see growing in you?

It is an honest and sometimes uncomfortable question. When people observe your life over time, what becomes increasingly apparent? Some people, as the years pass, grow more bitter. Others grow cynical, resentful, or hardened. Some become apathetic, having lost the fire they once carried. Others grow defensive, always armed with a justification, always ready to deflect. These things grow quietly, almost without notice, until one day they are simply the defining characteristic others associate with a person.

But another kind of growth exists. A better kind. Jesus describes it in two brief but powerful parables recorded in Matthew 13.

The Mustard Seed: Small Beginnings, Unstoppable Growth
Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as being like a mustard seed — the smallest seed a farmer would plant for harvest, yet one that grows into a tree large enough for birds to come and build their nests in its branches. The contrast is dramatic. A seed so small it sits between two fingertips becomes something so substantial that other living creatures find shelter and home within it.

Jesus is not simply saying that small things can become large things. The point is the inevitability of that growth. You cannot plant a mustard seed and stop it from becoming what it was designed to become. The growth is persistent, continuous, and visible. You cannot ignore it. You cannot pretend it is not happening. It is right there for anyone to see.

And so the question returns: Is your faith like that? Is your spiritual life something that has been quietly, persistently, visibly growing over time? Are the people around you able to look at you and see something that was not there before — something larger, something more substantial, something that others are actually benefiting from?

In Matthew 17, Jesus tells his disciples that if they had faith even the size of a mustard seed, they could move mountains. This is not a statement about the power of positive thinking. It is a statement about dependence on God. The mustard seed does not grow by its own cleverness or strategy. It grows because it was designed to grow, and because the conditions God provides allow it to do exactly that. Faith works the same way. It does not require you to be extraordinary. It requires you to trust an extraordinary God and let that trust deepen over time.

The Leaven: Invisible Work, Undeniable Results
The second parable is equally striking. Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to leaven — what we might recognize today as something like a sourdough starter — worked into a massive amount of flour by a woman until the entire batch is leavened. Three measures of flour is enough to make bread for roughly a hundred people. That is a staggering amount of dough, and the leaven works its way through every bit of it.

What makes leaven remarkable is that it works invisibly at first. You mix it in, and for a time nothing seems to be happening. But then the bubbles begin. The dough begins to rise. What was flat and dense begins to lift and expand. The transformation becomes undeniable.

This picture shows the Holy Spirit working in a believer's life. The growth may not always be dramatic or immediately visible, but it is happening. And eventually, it becomes impossible to miss. The question is whether you are allowing that process to continue — whether you are feeding your faith the way a sourdough starter must be fed, returning to Scripture, to prayer, to community, to worship — or whether you have let it go dormant.

Growth Requires Difficulty
One important thing about bread-making applies directly to the Christian life. Kneading dough is hard work. You push it, fold it, slap it down, stretch it, and work it repeatedly before giving it time to rest — and then you do it again. This process is not punishment. It is preparation. It is what makes the bread what it is supposed to be.

James 1 speaks to this directly, describing the testing of faith as something that produces steadfastness. Trials are not evidence that God has abandoned you. They are evidence that God is working something into you. The difficulty is the kneading. The resistance is the folding. Pressure produces the result.

This reframes everything. The Christian who leans into God during difficulty, who says "I do not fully understand what God is doing, but I trust that he has a plan," is not being naive. That person is demonstrating exactly the kind of faith Jesus described — small in its own eyes, but growing, and growing visibly.

What Should Be Growing
The New Testament is consistent and clear about what spiritual growth looks like in practical terms. In 1 Thessalonians, believers are urged to encourage one another and build each other up. Romans calls us to pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. Ephesians instructs that words should be chosen for their ability to build up and give grace to those who hear them. Hebrews calls the church to stir one another up toward love and good works.

The fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — should be becoming more apparent in a believer's life over time, not less. These are not personality traits. They are the evidence of a life being transformed from the inside out by the work of God.

A Closing Reflection
Philippians 3 captures the posture of a growing believer well. Paul writes that he has not arrived, that he does not consider himself to have obtained everything yet, but that he presses on — forgetting what lies behind, straining toward what lies ahead, pursuing the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That is the invitation. Not perfection. Not immediate transformation. But persistent, faithful, visible growth that others can see — growth that provides shelter for those around you, growth that works its way through everything it touches, growth that moves mountains not because of your own strength, but because of the God in whom your faith is rooted.
So again, the question: What do others see growing in you?