I grew up with it. It was a staple in our family diet when one of us was sick. With a meat sandwich, it became a great meal. With a grilled cheese sandwich it became Saturday lunch. I’m talking about Campbell’s soup. I can’t even remember being sick and not having Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and Jello! So I was surprised to read that Campbell’s is undergoing a major overhaul of their soups. Supermarket brands have cut into their market share, so they have invested in very expensive equipment to cook their soups in different ways so that the vegetables are crispier and their broths are better. They’ve already added more chicken to their Chicken Noodle and they’re adding more alphabet noodles to their alphabet soups.

    Now if something that is much a staple as Campbell’s Soup sees the need to keep improving their soup, doesn’t that say something significant to us?

    It’s so easy to settle into the ruts of our life with complacency. It doesn’t matter how many times people tell us the definition of a rut — a grave without ends — we just get tired of making the effort. So we just give ourselves permission to settle in the place where we find ourselves. After all, we’re awfully busy and we’ve got so many things going on, how can we add anything else to the schedule?

    The reality, however, is that we are either continuing our growth and reaching toward Jesus, or we’re settling into that grave without ends. We’ll wake up some morning and realize that we haven’t been living life; we’ve just been stumbling through a dead life.

God is at work inside us to improve and mature us.

    The glorious reality of being in Christ is that the Holy Spirit lives within us. Our improvement is not based only on our effort. God is at work inside us to improve and mature us. Transformation, that daily change in the right direction, is going on in our lives if we are willing to partner with God in the process. And we’re not talking about cosmetic changes in packaging; we’re talking about substantive changes in our character, maturity, wisdom, and relationships. This is our freedom in Christ. We aren’t stuck in a grave without ends, but life intensifies and we become more than we once were. The Bible puts it this way:

Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom ... and as we behold him, we all reflect the Lord’s glory. We are being changed to be more like him everyday. This change in us brings more and more glory. This glory comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)