Grow Up!

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

~Ephesians 6:1-3

Yesterday was Mother’s Day and it always makes me a little sentimental as I think about how quickly the years flew by and my kids grew up. Even though it’s the order of things, as parents, we don’t realize how quickly time flies until our kids are out of the house and on their own. I miss the days when my kids were little. I miss the handprint drawings and papier mache flowers. I miss being the only woman in my sons’ lives and I miss being the only comfort for my daughters. I miss the sound of giggles and footsteps and fingerprints on the walls. I miss all of that, but I realize that I also seem to have forgotten all the fighting, screaming, yelling, arguing, and the beds that were never made, laundry never put away, garbage never taken out, and all the other things that also go with being a parent. We tend to romanticize the past once it’s actually the past and not our every day life. There’s a lot to be said for growing up too.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways (1 Corinthians 13:11).”

We are all expected to grow up. Even God expects us to grow up in Him. We don’t expect our children to stay in the infancy stage, the toddler stage, or the teen stage. We want them to grow, learn and mature, and eventually, be on their own and start their own families. God wants the same type of growth in us. When we come to Him, newly saved, unsure of our first steps in Christ, He gives us His Holy Spirit as a guide, and directs us to church, to pastors, to teachers, and others who can help us grow in His word and His ways. It is our path in life to grow and spread the gospel to others, to lend a hand to help others grow in God, and to become mature Christian men and women. Just as we expect our children to grow and leave behind their youthful pursuits and immaturity, God expects us to do the same (2 Timothy 2:22). Growing up isn’t easy but that’s why there are parents and grandparents to help us along the way. Once we are grown, however, we are expected to act accordingly. We are expected to earn our own living, pay bills, raise our own kids, and to act responsibly as mature adults. God expects nothing less.

“But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).”

I miss the children my kids used to be, but I am madly in love with the men and women they’ve become. They are no longer children subject to the whims and careless pursuits of youth. They no longer base decisions on what their friends do, or what they think they can get away with if mom doesn’t know about it. They have grown up and act accordingly. When we, as children of God, continue to act as though we have no direction, or pursue things contrary to God’s word, then we are not growing in Christ but are instead, hanging on to the things of the world; to the things of the past that made us feel good or gave us a sense of worth – even if that really wasn’t the case. We must put away our childish whims and grow in the Lord, becoming like Christ and being set apart from the world.

“And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,  until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,  so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes (Ephesians 4:11-14).”

Read 2 Kings 1-5; Ephesians 4

©2018 Marie McGaha