Is any of this actually working? I've asked myself that question countless times over the decades. I'd look at my life and still see the same struggles, still fall into familiar patterns, still make the same mistakes, still wobble even sometimes wildly. And I'd wonder, Am I actually growing? Am I making any progress? Or am I just spinning in circles, convincing myself I'm navigating when I'm really just drifting?
This is where the long view became essential for me.
I began to understand that growth in discipleship is almost always invisible in the short term and unmistakable in the long term. Day to day, you can't see it. Week to week, you might catch glimpses. Month to month, you're not sure. But year to year, decade to decade is when you actually look back with honest eyes and see the evidence of the Holy Spirit's work and it becomes undeniable.
Later in life, I can look back over decades of following Christ and see patterns I couldn't see at the time. I had to learn that the wobble itself is evidence the Holy Spirit is working. Not its absence or the achievement of a straight line. The presence of active, engaged, responsive navigation. Dead things don't wobble. Stagnant things don't course-correct. If my faith looked exactly the same today as it did five years ago, that wouldn't be stability, in reality, it would be stagnation. The wobble means something is happening. I'm engaging with God, responding to the Spirit, learning and adjusting and growing. I'm alive.
What I measure now isn't the presence of wobble, but its amplitude. Over time, as I've matured, the swings have become smaller. The course corrections quicker and less dramatic. I recognize drift sooner, catching it in days instead of months. I recover faster when I make mistakes and repeat mistakes less frequently. I need less external correction because I've internalized awareness. I maintain stability in chaos. I extend more grace to others because I'm more aware of my own wobble and God's patience with me.
Looking back, I can see specific wobbles that felt like total failure in the moment but were actually formation in retrospect. In my early twenties, I inherited significant money and squandered it completely with foolish decisions, accumulated debt, and nearly bankruptcy. At the time, it felt like I'd ruined my financial future. But looking back with the long view, I can see what God was doing. That season taught me the difference between wanting something and affording it, the cost of living above my means to maintain an image, the discipline of honoring commitments, the freedom of giving God first place through tithing. The amplitude of my financial wobble has decreased dramatically since then.
For years, I found my identity in roles as a military officer, weather forecaster, athlete, pastor, or father. When roles changed, I experienced identity crisis. Each transition felt destabilizing, like losing myself. But looking back, I can see God was teaching me that my identity is in Christ alone. Not in what I do or the titles I hold. It took decades for this lesson to settle in deeply. I'm still learning it, but I can navigate role changes now without the same existential crisis. I spent much of my adult life looking to the next thing, never fully present because I was always scanning the horizon. I told myself this was ambition, but it was really discontent. It wasn't until I spent an entire year reading Scripture with the specific lens of contentment that this began to shift. Looking back, I can see how that one focused season changed my trajectory.
The hard truth is that I will never arrive. There's no point where the wobble stops, where I'm fully mature and can coast. Paul, at the end of his life, wrote: "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on." If Paul didn't arrive, neither will I. And that's not depressing, it's freeing. I can stop judging myself by the standard of arrival, stop comparing myself to some imaginary "mature Christian" who has it all together, stop beating myself up for still struggling with issues I thought I'd overcome.
I'm in process. I will always be in process. Until I see Christ face to face, the work of formation continues. This is normal. This is expected. This is the journey. The goal isn't perfection or arrival or the elimination of wobble. The goal is faithfulness in staying engaged, taking the next step, staying oriented toward Christ even when wobbling wildly, navigating with honesty rather than performing with pretense.
I will be wobbling until the day I die. And I'm grateful for it, because the wobble means I'm alive, means the Spirit is still working, still forming, still leading. Take the long view. Look back honestly to see the evidence. Then press on faithfully, one wobbling step at a time, all the way home.
