God is gracious and may cause us to grow in spite of ourselves. He is loving and kind and understands our frailty. But generally speaking, I do not think we are supposed to stand idly by and wait for God to do something in terms of our spiritual development unbeknownst to us. We should not anticipate growth in godliness to be a matter of happenstance.
Rather, as the picture above suggests, Christlikeness does not happen by accident. There is no accidentally getting closer to God. There is rarely unintentional and inadvertent sanctification. Christian maturity is not a function of passivity. If we are not intentional about discipleship in our own lives, it is either not going to happen at all or it will happen to such a minute degree that it will be hardy noticeable.
This picture also reminded of a quote from a book I am currently reading called God in the Whirlwind. The author, David Wells, suggest "we need to carve out space for ourselves in which we can daily attend to God’s Word, to study it, mark it, learn it, and inwardly digest its truth." The key word in this quotation is "carve." Carving suggest intentionality. It's cutting, but it's purposeful cutting. And it also indicates pain. It might hurt a little to carve out time for God.
But the pain is worth it. And it won't happen by accident.
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