Growth is Weird

College is weird. Spiritual growth happens in obscure ways. In scary ways, even. I'm growing in other ways, too, but that's the way in which growth has been, well, really different. With academic growth you basically start with a basis of facts and then move more and more into critical thinking while maintaining a factual (or at least plausible theoretical) basis for these thoughts. But with spiritual growth you are often forced to do things that are downright scary. Rethinking my views on the war in Iraq during high school was one thing. Being told more than a few times that I needed a serious adjustment in lifestyle (which I have, often in a halfhearted manner, made), and realizing that doing it more wholeheartedly is very scary, is quite another. The second of the two is more terrifying for me, because it means I--not just one belief about this or that, or whatever, but I, me, down to my very core--it means that I have to change, and I have to give up the complete control over these changes. It's much more terrifying realizing that the problem with my Bible reading habits isn't really in the habits, but in something else, than realizing that I might have been thinking wrong about politics. Academic and spiritual growth can't compare. Both are challenge--at times one is easier than the other. But in terms of fear, in terms of how scary they are, spiritual growth is definitely the more intense.