Sometimes I feel like I just can’t wait until I grow up spiritually, and have it all together. I feel like I did as a kid in my early teens, when I couldn’t wait to be an adult and be in control of my own life. I would have a good job, my own house, my own family, my own rules. I would buy whatever I wanted at the grocery store (I was going to eat sugary cereal for breakfast every morning), I would watch whatever I wanted on TV, and stay up as late as I wanted. I wouldn’t do any chores, because I would make my kids do all of those. It was going to be Awesome!
Now that I’ve reached that point in my life where I would say I’m a “grown up”, I feel pretty gypped. I have the good job that provides my family with food, clothing, and a place for us to live, but I really wish I didn’t need one. I made my own rules for my kids, which are pretty much the same as the rules my parents had for me. I can buy whatever I want at the grocery store, but I probably buy less sugary cereal for my family than my parents bought when I was a kid. I can watch whatever I want to watch on TV, but I don’t really watch much TV. I can even stay up as late as I want, but I usually don’t want to stay up very late.
I thought when I grew up, I was going to suddenly enter some new level of consciousness where I feel free and confident, always knowing exactly what to do in every situation. In reality, I just feel the same, but have more responsibility, and even less freedom then I had as a kid. Even though I don’t remember a certain point where I became mature… I guess if I take an objective look at my current situation, the evidence suggests I matured at some point along the way.
So how long does it take to become spiritually mature, and how will I know when I’ve gotten there? Does anyone ever really achieve spiritual maturity as I envisioned it when I first gave my life to God? I’ve been a Christian for a long time, but I feel like every time I make some sort of milestone progress in my spiritual life, I just see more ways that I am messed up then I saw before.
It reminds me of a paleontologist digging up fossils. It’s like God’s got a shovel and He starts digging at the hill of dirt that is the sin in my life. Somewhere buried under all that sin is the fossil, the perfect person He intended for me to be. At first all I saw was the stuff on top of the pile, and I thought those sins were all that was there. Once He moved a few of those big rocks and dirt clods I was sure I we would see the fossil. However, once God picked up a big clod of the dirt that was on top, a bunch of smaller sinful, compromising tendencies were underneath, holding it up. As He makes progress and gets closer to the prize, he put’s down the shovel and starts picking up the smaller pieces with a spade, then a fine brush. To make matters worse, the area the fossil is buried in has a lot of dust storms, which will often cover the fossil back up with dirt. It’s slow, painstaking work that requires a lot of precision and patience. Once He gets the fossil out of the mountain of dirt, there’s still a lot of cleaning and polishing to do to get the filth that is stuck in the the fossils fine crevasses before it will be presentable enough that anyone would want to look at it in a museum. Oh, and that final polishing… it isn’t going to happen until your dead.
The fact is, we will never attain perfection in this life. No matter how much sin gets taken off of you, those stains in the fossil that are so deeply ingrained in us can’t be removed until we receive our new heavenly bodies. I once heard a pastor define spiritual maturity as having: “Humble self-awareness and a deep need for Jesus”. Spiritual maturity is a realization that nothing you do right or wrong will get rid of your sinful nature, which humbles you and leads you to throw all of your hope on Jesus. As we cleave to Him, give our lives to Him, learn about Him, and get to know Him, we slowly get transformed by Him. Spiritual maturity is not getting to the point where you reach a certain good to bad ratio in your life. It comes when you realize that Jesus doesn’t give us victory over sin, He is our victory over sin. God doesn’t give us peace, joy, and strength, He is our peace, joy, and strength.
So grow up. Stop being so focused on your own shortcomings and letting them get in the way of your relationship with God. Stop thinking that you have to be practically perfect in every way, before God can use you to spread the gospel. Stop being embarrassed/afraid to talk to fellow belivers about things that you struggle with. Whether you believe yet or not, whether you have a relationship with God or not, whether you just know about Jesus, or you actually know Jesus, we are all at the same level. None of us is or will be perfect in this life, and Christianity is not really about becoming more perfect. It’s about worshipping and being dependent on the one who is perfect. It’s about sharing Him with other people who don’t yet realize that they need Him just as much as you do.