The Lord laid it on my heart late last year that I needed three of the following things in my spiritual walk when it comes to relationships. I need a mentor, a mentee, and a peer. I also believe every Christian would do well to have these three solid people in their life as well.
First, I need a mentor. A mentor is someone whom I would consider to be at a spiritual level higher than myself. This person needs to be eating meat (solid food) on a daily basis. What I mean by this is that they are no longer babies in Christ, but adults as referenced in 1 Corinthians 3:2 (NIV) which says, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.” This is a person who will challenge you and encourage you to stretch beyond your current spiritual limits.
A word of caution about mentors. Make sure you pick a mentor who is speaking truth according to the bible. If they say something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask them where it comes from in the bible. The goal for the mentor is to lead you to a higher spiritual level not down the wrong path into spiritual misunderstanding which is not biblically based.
Second, I need a mentee. If I am honest with myself, I am not a baby Christian. I am more mature than some Christians around me, and I have wisdom or guidance I could offer to some people around me. This is probably the hardest role to accept about oneself, because as Christians we don’t EVER have it all together. However, God did not set us free from our sins so we could be an island unto ourselves. He came to give us life to the full, and He wants to give that to others He loves too. What if you are the one He wants to use, but you refuse. You believe you are not mature enough as a Christian, or don’t have anything to offer someone else? Well, we could miss out on some very cool things God has planned if we did that.
Third, I need a peer. I need someone I can call or have coffee with and share what is going on in my life. This is someone whom I would consider to be on my same spiritual level. It is someone I can be truthfully and transparent with. I don’t want a plastic peer who gives me plastic answers. I want someone to challenge me now and again about my bible times or my prayer times or even be bold enough to call me out on a sin. Don’t pick a plastic peer. You need a real one.
Lastly, pray. Pray about this and ask God to reveal to you whom He would like to put into your life and whose life He would like to put you into. These people might already be in your life, or they might not. Be prepared for God to lead someone into your life that you didn’t even know before you started praying as He did with me. Remember that God has a bigger view than we do.
There is a line in the movie Shawshank Redemption I love which says, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” I think the Christian walk is comparable to this. To me it is like a flower. I believe that we are either in the process of growing, or we are in the process of dying. If we are not growing in Christ and challenging ourselves, then what are we doing? Are we dying? I have cycled during my relationship with Christ between these two worlds as I would expect most of us Christians have, and I think it is so normal. Even though it might be normal, I don’t believe it is how God wants us to live our lives. Being comfortable? Being OK with the way things are? No, I think God wants us to push ourselves and others to strive for something better than we ever thought possible. Pray and let God use you to bless and enrich the life of someone else, and let Him use someone else to bless and enrich your life as well.