Maturity

            To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. (Colossians 1:27-28)

When you were a kid, were you impatient to grow up? Did you wonder why it seemed to take so long? And now that you are 20…40…60…80… do you wonder if it’s ever going to happen? Or do you regret your impatience as a child, wishing you could have enjoyed those first 20 years instead of wasting it by longing for adulthood? Or, do you think you’re an adult, entitled to be treated like one? Let’s ask the same question a different way. When you struggle with things, do you get impatient with yourself, thinking that somehow, by this age, you should be past that “childish” or “basic” problem?

We like to think ourselves mature, no matter how old we are. What if we’re wrong? What if this stage of life we call “life” is the equivalent of the nine months we spend in the womb? That time is what is needed for our physical bodies to develop to the point where we are ready to be born. What if our “lives” are nothing more than the time it takes our souls to gestate – to prepare to be “born”?

We don’t know what goes on in the minds of those in the womb. Most would say that nothing does, but I suspect that’s just arrogance. We don’t remember what we thought in the womb, so we must not have though anything. But if we did think, would it have done us any good to complain about the fact that we’re not breathing on our own at four months?

When the going gets tough, we tend to become impatient, thinking that we are, or should be, something other than we are. But returning to yesterday’s post and the vital necessity of faith and trust, today’s passage hints that when the going gets tough, what we need to do is let God work, because He will accomplish what is necessary in us and through us, so that we are brought to full maturity.