How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth

372 Pages·2001·1.26 MB·English

by  Dr. Henry Cloud

how
P
EOPLE
grow
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how
P
EOPLE
grow
What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth
DR. HENRY CLOUD
DR. JOHN TOWNSEND
Authors of Boundaries
How People Grow
Copyright © 2001 by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
This title is also available as a Zondervan audio product.
Visit www.zondervan.com/audiopages for more information.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
ISBN-13: 978-0-31-031956-6
ISBN-10: 0-310-31956-0
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked nasb are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright ©
1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman foundation, La
Habra, CA.
Scripture quotations marked nlt are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright
© 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust.
Occasionally italics are used in Scripture quotations for emphasis by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or
any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the
publisher.
Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Suite 1000,
Literary Agent, Orange, CA.
Interior design by Todd Sprague
To all those who have sought God and his growth path,
and to all those who labor to help others grow.
We are grateful for your hunger for him and his ways.
C
ONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
PART I. PARADISELOST
1) Harder Than I Thought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2) Seeing the Big Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3) How the Big Picture Affects the Small . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
PART II. THEMASTER GARDENER: THEGODOF GROWTH
4) The God of Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5) Jesus: Our Example for Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6) The Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
PART III. FINDINGTHEBESTCLIMATE
7) God’s Plan A: People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
8) Open Spaces: The Power of Acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
9) Getting to the Warmth of Forgiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
PART IV. THEPATHOFGROWTH
10) The Gardener’s Handbook: The Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
11) No Pain, No Gain: The Role of Suffering and Grief. . . . . . . 206
12) Growing Tasty Fruit: Becoming a Righteous Person. . . . . . . 235
13) The Value of Pruning: Discipline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
14) Water from a Deeper Well: Spiritual Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
15) Following the Gardener: Obedience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
16) Pulling the Weeds: The Problem of Sin and Temptation. . . . 293
17) Facing Reality: How Truth Deepens Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
18) Putting on the Gloves: The Importance of Activity. . . . . . . . 332
19) Waiting for the Harvest: Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Conclusion: Growth for Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364444444
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P r e f a c e
If you have picked up this book, it is likely that you have some inter-
est in the growth process. It could range from being curious about
the subject to a deep involvement in helping others grow. Whatever
your reasons, welcome to How People Grow!
We would like to explain briefly the reasons for this book:
—To show that all growth is spiritual growth. Most Christians are
aware of their need to grow. Some come to this point because they pos-
sess a hunger and desire to know God and his ways better. Others are
interested through a problem or crisis that has driven them to seek his
paths. We believe that getting to know God more deeply, growing emo-
tionally, and having better relationships are all matters of spiritual growth.
God has designed a path of growth that leads us to him and his ways. As
we learn and experience that path, we enter his life. This changes our
entire existence, encompassing emotions, behavior, relationships, career,
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how people grow
and everything else in life. We want people to learn that way for
themselves.
—To show that the principles of growth are in the Bible and its
teachings. Many people are confused about the role of the Scriptures
in their growth. They sometimes attempt to learn their religion and
theology from the Bible, and growth and counseling from psychology.
We believe that the Bible and its great doctrines teach the truths and
principles people need in order to grow. The problem with many
people is not that the truths aren’t in the pages of Scripture, but that
they have not understood what it really teaches about growth. This
book leads back to the Bible as the source for teaching about growth
and healing.
—To provide an overall approach to growth. Many people will get
involved in a growth-based church, or start reading books about the
subject. Yet there are few resources that provide a comprehensive
approach to the growth process. As a point of background, we devel-
oped this approach over many years of biblical and theological study
and have worked on it with people in all kinds of contexts, including
(cid:129) Counseling settings
(cid:129) Churches
(cid:129) Denominations
(cid:129) Parachurch organizations
(cid:129) Businesses
(cid:129) Psychiatric hospital settings
(cid:129) Leadership settings
All of our counseling, consulting, writing, and speaking is based on this
system of biblical growth. Each one of our books, for example, is about
some aspect of life or growth that comes from the approach: a brick from
the house, so to speak. After we had taught on these matters for a few
years, people started asking us to write about the system of growth as a
whole. They wanted to know what the architecture of the entire house
looked like. We agreed with that interest, and this book is the result.
—To help those helping others grow. Not only do we want to see
people learn about spiritual growth, but we want to provide a tool for
those facilitating growth in others. This includes the following:
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