During the first four years of growth, a bamboo tree has little results. It doesn’t matter how much water or fertilizer you put on the tree, it has a very slow growth rate.  But in the fifth year, the tree shoots up in phenomenal fashion.  As a matter of fact, in a span of only five weeks the tree can grow ninety feet in height.

The sudden growth is the result of years of committed harvesting.  The tree may appear to shoot up overnight, but without the faithful years of watering and fertilizing it would never get to that point.

Many Christians want to grow overnight, and when they fail to see immediate results, they get aggravated, frustrated, and weary in well-doing.  Spiritual growth doesn’t work that way.  It takes continual, constant, committed discipline to grow spiritually in the Lord.  Growth is a day after day matter.  Just a little here and a little there.  Ben Herbster said, “The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.”

Don’t sell short your spiritual growth.  Keep watering, keep fertilizing, inch by inch, day after day, year after year, and you will eventually bear the fruit of a life committed to God.