I have known men who have been saved for twenty years and are still having the same spiritual struggles they had in year one.

Same temptations. Same blind spots. Same arguments with God about the same territory He asked them to surrender two decades ago. They know the Word. They attend church. They have the language down. But something is not moving. The dial has not turned. And if you pressed them honestly they would admit they are not sure why.

Spiritual stagnation in a grown man is not a mystery. It usually traces back to one of a few things.

The first is comfort. A man who accepted Christ but never accepted the discomfort of discipleship will not grow. Discipleship requires being corrected. It requires having blind spots exposed. It requires submitting to a process that does not always feel productive and does not always come with visible results. Comfortable men resist all of that because the Christian life they built does not require it. They come to church. They tithe occasionally. They are decent people. The arrangement works fine until God asks for more and they quietly renegotiate.

The second is isolation. Men who are not in genuine accountability relationships do not grow. They manage. Managing is not the same as growing. A man surrounded only by people who agree with him has no iron to sharpen against. He reinforces himself instead of challenging himself. The echo chamber feels safe and produces nothing.

The third is the avoidance of suffering. This is the hardest one to say and the most important. Scripture is consistent that suffering produces something in a believer that comfort never can. Patience. Character. Proven faith. The men who grow deepest have almost always been through something hard and chose to stay rather than walk away. The men who stay shallow have often been protected from the very pressure God uses to build depth.

Growth is not automatic. It is not a byproduct of time spent in church. It is the result of a man who is willing to be honest about where he is, accountable to people who will tell him the truth, and available to the process even when the process is painful.

The door is not locked. But a man has to be willing to walk through it without knowing exactly what is on the other side.

Stephon Rudd