My late friend Patti Cepin, co-creator of Potter’s Wheel and author of Learning to Love the Master, once shared a picture that has stuck with me: our journey of sanctification (a Christian word for the process of becoming like Jesus) is like a spiral staircase.
A spiral staircase can feel deceiving. You go around and around—but it can look like you haven’t really moved. As you look around, the terrain looks familiar. The view doesn’t seem to change. The same struggle. The same temptation. The same ache in your heart. It can feel like you’re stuck in the same place, circling endlessly.
But you’re not.
You’re not stuck—you’re being formed. Each pass brings you to a new depth. A new perspective. A new layer of healing. Sanctification is slow and often frustrating, but it’s not stagnant.
Sometimes, God allows us to encounter familiar places again—not to shame us, but to help grow us. What looks like the same struggle is actually an invitation to deeper healing and growth. He’s not taking you in circles—He’s shaping you step by step.
Think of Peter. Of all the things Jesus did in the forty days after his resurrection, one of the few we read about is how He chose to redeem him. The night before the crucifixion, Peter was asked about his relationship with Jesus and denied even knowing him—three times.
So now, the risen Jesus asks Peter three questions.
“Do you love me?”
“Do you love me?”
“Do you love me?”
Three questions. Jesus beelined straight to Peter’s great shame, ripping open that fresh wound.
Jesus didn’t return to Peter’s failure to shame him—He brought him back to that moment to redeem him. He gave Peter the chance to respond differently. To be restored. In the very place where he had recently failed.
That’s how Jesus works. Sometimes, He allows us to return to familiar pain not to break us but to meet us there with His mercy—not to reopen the wound but to tend to it more deeply than we could if we avoided it.
Lately, I’ve found myself wrestling with some familiar struggles. As I’ve circled the staircase, I’ve sensed the same emotional terrain: weariness, restlessness, the temptation to escape and withdraw.
I’ve noticed how often these struggles reemerge when life feels heavy—when I’m overwhelmed, emotionally burdened, and utterly exhausted.
Honestly, I wish growth came faster. I wish it was over. But what if spiritual growth isn’t about arriving, but about walking with Jesus through each layer of the journey? What if the clearest evidence of growth isn’t that I’ve moved past the struggle, but that I’m still choosing Him in the middle of it? And what if this trust doesn’t guarantee the struggle will disappear in a year—or even ten? I expect growth to feel like resolution. But God seems to work slowly, in layers. Not avoiding pain, but meeting me in it. And when the lies creep in—that I’m a failure, a fraud, that if I really loved God this wouldn’t still be hard—I have to return to the truth: Jesus isn’t disappointed in me. He’s patient. He’s kind. He’s building something in me, like He did with Peter. And when I pay attention, I can see it. The struggle may feel familiar, but I’m not the same. He’s shaped me in the spiral. He’s made me more like himself. After all, that’s the whole point.
And yes, sometimes it feels like we’re going in circles. But what if we’re actually going deeper? Perhaps the spiral isn’t failure but formation and healing isn’t linear but layered.
And maybe, just maybe, Jesus is with us at every step, asking, “Will you trust me here?”
Reflection:
- Where in your life do you feel like you’re “going in circles”?
- What’s a pattern in your life that God might be inviting you into deeper healing or growth?
- Like Peter, have you ever experienced redemption in the very place you felt most ashamed or defeated?
- Where do you sense Jesus asking, “Will you trust me?”
Leave a Reply