Grow Deep: A Word to Young Men

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You want your life to matter. Maybe you look back with regret at years of trifling or lusting or swearing or drinking. You’ve wasted so much time dead in your trespasses and sins that now you awake anxious to make up for lost time. You’ve been asleep to great things for so long.

For as long as you have left to live, you want to live for Jesus. So many friends and family don’t know him. So much to do. So little time. You think you hear the Lord say, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Your heart cries, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). Holy ambitions fly high; practical knowledge runs low. What do you do now to make the best use of the time you have left?

My first word to young men, especially those with ministry aspirations, is to grow deep.

Grow Deep

Young man, you feel a keen ambition for holy usefulness. You wish to serve Jesus with a strength double that with which you formerly served evil. Good. True Christianity is no listless, small, insignificant call that demands nothing, risks nothing, toils for nothing, expects nothing. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Only by God’s power and grace will you sustain your race, complete your soldiery, arrive safely home — let alone bring others with you.

You dedicate your bow, your sword, your spear to his service. He doesn’t need them, but he accepts them. Wherever he points, you will ride. You are willing to be deployed now: What sermons need preaching, what neighbors need gospeling, what Bible study needs leading?

My aim is not to dissuade these actions, but to ensure their success. To this end, I offer one simple principle well-attested in Scripture: Relentlessly attend to what lies beneath the soil — your personal holiness and communion with the Lord. While many others focus great exertions on growing upward — on their visible, public ministry — you grow, and grow deep, in the unseen places.

I wish to channel your ambition ever downward into the soil, into secret communion with God. To the eyes of natural ambition, this seems like a detour. But it is the secret detour to real and sustained usefulness in the kingdom, just as the disciples went away and waited in the upper room for power from on high. Take opportunities to be used of God as they arise, immerse yourself in good works, fan your abilities into flame, but do not make your usefulness the greater priority. This secures not only greater effectiveness in the long run but greater joy and strength in the work.

Vine and Branches

One text that has checked me in the best ways over the years is John 15. When I stare outward too long, this text returns my eyes downward. The Spirit reminds me that my fruitfulness grows from depth with my Lord and personal holiness.

Jesus, using a slightly different metaphor than the tree imagery of Psalm 1, tells his disciples on the eve of his death: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). You and I are not the vine. We do not have life in ourselves. Our best ambitions, broken off from Christ, are powerless. We are the branches. We derive all life and fruit from the vine, who is Christ.

On several walks with unbelievers, I have stopped to pick up dead branches from the ground. They lay fruitless at the foot of the tree. I hold it up and say something like, “Jesus Christ makes a startling claim when he says that this is a man’s life apart from him — withering and soon to be cast into the fire and burned (John 15:6). But look at those branches up top, connected to the tree — healthy, vibrant, fruitful. This is a man’s life trusting, believing, and following him.”

So it is with you and me. The ground has seen many dry branches once named pastors who withered because they allowed their desire to do for God crowd out their desire to be with God. They stared at their branch, constantly assessing their productivity, and lost sight of the vine. The less fruit they saw, the more they strained to extend themselves out to benefit others instead of sending themselves deeper into the source, to get life for their own souls.

But whom does Jesus teach will bear much fruit? “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus wants you to be fruitful. As does the Father. Jesus tells his disciples, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). Go after much fruit, for much fruit brings much honor to your Father and proves you to be a disciple of Christ.

But how does Jesus teach you to go after this fruit? You go after him. You stay with him in prayer, in obedience, in hidden communion. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). And what can you expect from abiding in him? Much fruit, and with it, much joy. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Apart from him, what can you expect to accomplish? Nothing, except unhappiness and futility. We want the Vine because we love and find joy in the Vine. And the Vine bestows life and fruit because he loves the branches.

Need of the Hour

What does the world need? The world needs men who have grown deep and keep growing deeper.

The world does not need men whose zeal to teach outpaces their zeal to abide. It needs men with deep roots. Men who know their God, walk humbly with him, cry out to him, burn with his flame, warm with his love.

God’s men study hard and read great thoughts of other men, but they know that diligent study alone cannot make a man of God. These are spiritual men, men tarrying in God’s presence, men who spend much time upon the mountain with the Lord. Give us these men, men who grow deep before God makes them tall, for these men turn the world upside down.

So, young man, grow deep. While others clamor for the seat of honor, seek to assert themselves over planting themselves, let your Lord strengthen you, build you up, humble you, and call you to a higher seat as he sees fit and in his good timing.

To remind myself of this advice, I wrote this poem years ago.

The Master throws seed all over the ground
They hatch and mature without making a sound.
In quiet depths while tired eyes sleep,
You, small seed, grow and grow deep.

Let other plants dream of reaching the sky,
Extending their arms to birds passing by,
Of harboring nests adorned with green leaves,
Of all they can do, but you must receive.

They shoot themselves up to stand as the oak,
But you burrow down to drink and to soak.
They straighten their backs where living things creep,
But you, little seed, grow and grow deep.

They take great delight as they sprout from the earth.
They spread forth their hands to show forth their worth.
No time for that kingdom where low things abound;
Their trusted way up is the quickest way down.

For they swayed above ground and lived among brutes;
They had stem, they had leaf, but they never had roots.
They only desired to dance tall in the breeze,
Not knowing great oaks grow tall on their knees.

But you, little seed, cling to the Giver.
Plant yourself deep, that your leaves never wither.
Don’t rush to the high; rather sink to the low.
Let Christ welcome up; let God make you grow.

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