Faith @ First - October 2, 2026
If you’ve ever tried to grow anything - a garden, a relationship, a ministry, a child—you know that love alone doesn't mean leaving something unattended. Growing things need care. They need attention.
They need encouragement when they’re flourishing and tending when they’re struggling. Sometimes they need room to stretch. Sometimes they need support to keep from falling over. And sometimes love requires us to notice what could become harmful if left unattended.
That’s true for children. But if we’re honest, it’s true for all of us.
God loves us too much to leave us exactly as we are.
Throughout Scripture, we encounter a God who is constantly forming people—teaching, correcting, redirecting, encouraging, forgiving, and calling them forward. God’s grace welcomes us as we are, but that same grace keeps working on us so that we can become more loving, more faithful, more compassionate, and more like Christ.
Maybe that gives us a different question to carry this week: What does it look like to help someone grow in love?
Not simply to control behavior. Not to produce perfect people. But to nurture lives in which faith, wisdom, compassion, courage, and responsibility can take root.
And perhaps while we’re asking that question about the children we love; God might turn the question toward us: Where are You still trying to grow me?
Let us pray:
God of grace, thank You for loving us enough to keep shaping us. Give us wisdom as we care for those entrusted to us. Make us patient, compassionate, and faithful, and help us remain open to the ways You are still growing us. Amen.
This Sunday, join us at as we continue He Said/She Said: But What Did God Say? with one of the most familiar—and most debated—sayings yet: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Come worship with us as we listen together for what God has to say.
Keep the Faith @First,
Pastor Nicole
