Time to grow up

The graduation season is upon us, and you can bet that every mom who has a son or daughter graduating this year has spent hours pouring through old photographs of when her baby was a baby. We get awfully sentimental at times like this and think that we miss the days when they were little. But honestly, would you really want to go back to those days?

I wouldn’t.

Oh, there’s no doubt I had the cutest babies in the world, and there are definitely aspects I miss about their infancies and childhoods, but little ones are a LOT of work. There’s so much they can’t do for themselves. Going anywhere with a small child is a major ordeal, and you need SO much patience while they’re learning to talk, to dress themselves, to feed themselves, etc.

Now that my children are in their teens and twenties, I enjoy them immensely. Instead of having to do everything for them, they can actually help me do things. They can express their needs and desires instead of grunting, whining, or throwing themselves into a fit on the floor. We can have adult-sized conversations – that’s my favorite!

Babies are cute, but it’s good that they grow up.

Some Christians never advance beyond childhood. They’ve made a decision for Christ, they’re going to heaven, but they refuse to grow up. They become the toddler who must be attended to and carried everywhere you go. They can’t have an “adult” conversation about the Lord, because there’s just so much they don’t know. When they were first born again, they were cute in their innocence, but as the years go by and there’s no growth, the charm wears off.

I Peter 2:2 says, “Like newborn babies, thirst for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in your salvation.” Then in 2 Peter 3:18 we have very clear instruction of what God expects from His children, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Both these passages command growth.

Do you feel like you already know everything there is to know about God? I think I could study every day for the rest of my life, live to be 100, and only touch the surface of the mysteries God will reveal.

Do you feel comfortable that you have become the person God intends for you to be? Growth is a lifetime process. When we stop growing, we start deteriorating – going backward in our growth.

The next few weeks of The Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotional will be devoted to spiritual growth. I hope you’ll enjoy Pastor Warren’s tips for growing in your faith.