Growing Big and Strong in Christ

On Wednesday evenings at college, I walked the long, rocky path to the campus post office. I’d arrive winded but excited, knowing I would receive a short note from my dad written on yellow-lined paper that read the same each time: he loved me, he missed me, and he was proud of me.

His prayers were just as steady. As a child, every night, he knelt at my bedside using the exact same words each time, asking God to simply help me “grow big and strong.” As a child, his heartfelt plea often unsettled me. After all, what little girl hoping for princess status wants to “grow big and strong”?

Ironically, a memory of my dad’s prayers came to mind this week as I was thinking about my son and all he’s facing in this difficult season of divorce and health challenges. Like the psalmist, I know he is feeling like “a man who has no strength” (Ps. 88:4). God used this moment to remind me afresh that praying for someone to “grow big and strong” is only possible because of Christ’s saving work in them and that the greatest gift I can give to my fellow Christians (and those who do not believe) is the gospel itself. The gospel is the starting point, the source, and the sustaining power behind all spiritual maturity.

When the gospel is the central message I relate to myself each morning, like working out at the gym, I have “ample stimulation” to grow and thrive in Christ (Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love, 24). The fruit of fixing my mind on these truths is that I am more willing to love, trust, obey, and enjoy God when I am freshly mindful of him and his work in me. The gospel message also develops within me a corresponding burden and love for my brother and sister in Christ (Titus 3).

I wondered then, what prayer can I offer that goes to the heart of the matter for those I am praying for?

A prayer for growth

Spiritual growth is first and foremost attributed to the fact that as Christians, God, “being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:4–5). Like the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision, we were dead until God breathed his Spirit into us (Ezek. 37:5). The gospel is fundamentally relevant here, as we understand both our desperate need and his abundant mercy.

John Newton knew this well. In his hymn, "Prayer Answered by Crosses," Newton begins by recalling his prayer request: spiritual growth.

I ask'd the Lord, that I might grow

In faith, and love, and ev’ry grace,

Might more of his salvation know,

And seek more earnestly his face.

Newton, a former slave trader, prayed for God to “subdue” his sins, give him rest, and deepen his experience of salvation. To his surprise, the hymnist tells us:

Instead of this, he made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart;

And let the angry pow’rs of hell

Assault my soul in ev’ry part.

Seasoned believers know this surprise well. Having prayed to grow, we are often brought low with no clear warning. Confused, pained, and frustrated, those seeking God are unsure what he is up to. Where is God in their struggles with sin? Where is God in their disappointments or suffering? Why is he, as Newton asks later in the hymn, “intent to aggravate my woe” (John Newton, Olney Hymns, 353)?

Newton eventually realizes that God’s stripping is, in fact, his answer. God used the unveiling of Newton’s hidden sinful desires and temptations as the very means by which God was growing him in “faith, and love, and every grace.” Through the refining process, God helps us grow in grace and knowledge and bear lasting fruit (Col. 1:10, 2 Peter 3:18), so that we are “like a tree planted by streams of water . . . whose leaf does not wither” (Ps. 1:2–3 NIV). Every believer then, for all our lives, benefits from a prayer to grow in Christ, to walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith (Col. 2:6–7).

A prayer to grow big

The gospel raises the dead and enlarges us by filling us with God’s love. In praying for others to “grow big” in God’s kingdom, I am asking God to increase their capacity to know, love, obey, and serve him. Paul prays this way for the Ephesians, asking God to help his followers grasp the width, length, height, and depth of Christ’s love (Eph. 3:17–19). God’s love is so expansive, so lavish, that he revealed it through his Son on the cross, the resurrection, and the promise of eternal life (John 3:16). When we pray for someone to “grow big,” we are asking God to enlarge their heart and their faith and to expand their capacity to fulfill his calling.

A prayer to grow big and strong

Even as we pray for others to grow in Christ, we can also pray that they are made strong in Christ. Corrie Ten Boom embodied this type of strength. Her life was marked by significant suffering, including her imprisonment in a concentration camp during World War II. Missionary Elizabeth Elliot states that as Ten Boom learned “the depths of human helplessness and weakness, she turned to her ‘strong tower,’ finding him faithful to every promise.” Elliot continues, “One of the most soul-fortifying pictures I have of her in my mind is getting up in the morning, standing in her solitary cell, and singing in a loud voice so that other prisoners could hear, ‘Stand up, stand up for Jesus!’” (Elisabeth Elliot, A Path through Suffering, 44).

Perhaps the one we are praying for is like my son, who feels the weight of this world. Your person, too, may be afraid, weary, suffering, and experiencing various trials. In all these cases, and more, we can pray for them to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph. 6:10). We can pray that they will stand firm in the faith because God strengthens us “with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience” (Col. 1:11). Praying for someone to grow strong is praying that they grow strong in their faith as they give glory to God, fully convinced that God does what he promises (Rom. 4:20–21).

I once balked as a child at the prayer my father repeated over my bed each night to "grow big and strong.” Now I rejoice in it. The truth is that no one can grow, become spiritually “big,” or stand strong apart from the gospel. Without the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, transformation is not possible. Praying for someone to “grow big and strong” in Christ is praying rich, biblical truth over their life. It is praying for God to work deeply, gently, firmly, and faithfully in them.

May God grow you, enlarge your heart in Christ, and strengthen you to stand steadfast and sure in the days to come.