Maturity is a journey, not a destination. It is a process, not a product. It starts with desire and continues throughout life. To paraphrase Paul, "I don't feel that I have accomplished it, but I press on toward the mark and prize of the high calling of Christ Jesus," which to him was maturity in Christ.
Maturity is Christ in you, working through you. Recently I've been reading the biography of Oswald Chambers, whom most of you know as the author of My Utmost For His Highest. Actually he did not write that at all; he did not write anything and only lived until age 43. However, in God's interesting way, he married a woman who aspired to be the secretary of the Prime Minister of England. Her preparation included acquiring all secretarial skills necessary to beat out all the competition. She never got the chance at this professional career for his married Oswald. However, she did not waste any of her finely-honed skills. She took down everything that Chambers said in his lectures and years later dedicated her total life to putting these into print. This is how we have his writings. It is really his speaking and her transcription.
Many of us would call Oswald Chambers a Christian mystic for the way he trusted his entire life to the intimate working out of God's purpose for him. He accumulated little or nothing and was continually moving about through the world teaching the scripture. Yet few men have had the lasting effect of Chambers. As someone said, "He had no specific plans, he only had complete trust in God."
As I've been reading more and more I ask if we Christians are not trying to do God's work in man's way rather than doing God's work in God's way. We are sincere in working for God, but we're using our human means, talent and facilities. When we do God's work in our human ways then we have to depend on human power, love joy and peace, which are all inadequate and flawed. I think this is one of the reasons why we have so much conflict in our Christian community and why we have so many leaders who are frustrated and depressed. We are trying to do God's work in man's way. Instead, Chambers believed in doing God's work in God's way by simply becoming a tool for God and letting His Holy Spirit work through us. Therefore, we have available through us and to us the divine power, love, joy and peace which are ultimately perfect and mature in every way.
I see four elements of maturity and I want to just throw out four questions for your consideration. Perhaps someday we can have a good discussion about this. I certainly do not hold myself out as a model of maturity, but at my age I have seen good examples of the mature and not-so-mature. Think about these questions.
1. Is my faith simpler? Purer?
2. Am I learning the scriptural principles first-hand or am I depending on second-hand knowledge from others?
3. Is my prayer life more natural, more conversational and more continual?
4. Am I recognizing the Lord in my circumstances?
Thoreau used to say to Emerson when they saw each other, "What has become clearer to you since we last met?" These questions are firestarters and answers are gauges for growing maturity.
