Work In Progress

             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. (Colossian 1:27-28)

             But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:14)

             As I read the first passage above (the verse of the day on Biblegateway.com) the phrase that stuck out to me was “mature in Christ.” Maturity is our goal – and we recognize this when we’re kids. Kids can’t wait to grow up so they can do all those exciting things that grown-ups can do; most of which turn out to be less attractive than we anticipated. Once we can do them, we want to grow up to the point when we can retire and become freer – like children again. When we get there, we discover that our bodies and purses have failed us again.

            Part of the problem is likely to be that we have failed to understand what maturity is. We like to think of it as freedom and power over our world, but Paul describes it as wisdom and as doing precisely what Adam and Eve were promised by the serpent – to be like the Most High, knowing good and evil.

            This suggests that maturity is not only about what we can do, but about how we choose to do it. Adam and Eve wanted to take a short cut, to be granted maturity by eating fruit instead of by living life. They wanted it without God, on their own terms. Sound familiar? And it’s a consequence of our claiming the rewards of maturity without having earned them that most of our life challenges arise.

            But to flip this to the other side of the coin, because while we want to be granted the rights of the mature, we also want to reject the responsibilities. We don’t want to eat responsibility, give up bad habits, control our tongues or our tempers, etc. Yes, we want to be mature, when we feel like being mature or when it will benefit us, but most of the time – immaturity pays the salary we want, we think.

            Maturity requires practice and training and doesn’t end when we think it does. A child hasn’t learned to walk when she’s taken her first two steps. It takes years of practice, and when you hurt your leg, foot, or back you may have to learn to walk again. And even after years of practice, you can faceplant while walking and have to get you teeth fixed.  Maturity is always a work in progress.