Freeing Hearts to Grow Up

I HAVE studied human maturing in relation to caring for children in our daycare and in shepherding the children of God in the church. One question has plagued me for decades: why are so many adults still children in their hearts? 

I DON’T MEAN children “at” heart, which has a very good side to it both in working with children and living in God’s kingdom. I mean people who still ARE children inside themselves, adults who should have grown up by now, but they haven’t. An objective view of their maturity-level says they are still children, sometimes even infants! 

WHY? 

THE SIMPLE answer is that, passively, immature adults were denied the childhood environment of mature adults to show them how to handle life maturely and, actively, they reached some experience where they decided to send their real self into hiding for protection and began playing a pretend role to survive. 

FACT IS, we can’t mature from a role we are playing. We can only mature by being our real selves in relation to more mature people who are being their real selves. 

AND that requires the kind of love we were designed to thrive in, the love of God. 

I WISH I could say that the church is the safest place to learn to be our real selves in Christ. It should be. It could be. But the world, the flesh, and the devil don’t want broken people to feel safe with God, and they know that a church filled with the love of God would help all the children of God be themselves and grow up for real, and so they are constantly conspiring to “steal, and kill, and destroy”, as Jesus explained. 

MY MENTOR, Paul, described the way safety should look in the church Jesus is building: 

“RATHER, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” 

HOWEVER, I have to admit that I have far more experience in “the church” (typically the manmade variants) with “predators” than with “gentle protectors”. And too many people have responded to the scary people in churches by being “possums” who play dead with their souls while acting out a pretend role to avoid notice. 

AND THAT has left me with the one thing that belongs to every child of God who has received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior: The Triune God IS our safe place to grow up!!! 

ALL THE scriptures that picture God as a “refuge” or a “stronghold” are telling us that he is our one safe place. By constantly showing us that he is greater than all others, that he is unstoppable in working all things in our lives for good, and that he will carry on to completion the good work he has begun in his children, God is relating to us in the ways we need to be assured of his faithfulness to us. 

THE POINT this morning is that we can’t look to a church, or a Christian, or a friend, or a family member, as our safe place. We’re all too broken to be 100% trustworthy. And even the best of us don’t pick up on all the secret cues and clues that someone needs something only God knows about. 

BUT GOD is 100% true. His love is the only perfect love. As we attach ourselves to Jesus Christ like branches of a vine, we are filled with his life and his love so that we become like him in loving one another. That will make the church a safer place, but only to the extent that each member of the body of Christ is finding their ultimate safety in Christ himself. 

MY ENCOURAGEMENT to you is, learn to be honest with God. Learn to admit to God how you are doing. But listen to his word. It will amaze you as you pour out your heart to God about anything you are facing in yourself, and then read his word and hear what he has to say to you each day, and discover that you are learning to trust God as your refuge and strength, your ever present help in trouble, and that it feels like you are growing up to be your real self. 

AND ONE DAY you discover yourself thinking of others differently. Instead of the self-protective reaction to keep yourself safe, you have thoughts of how to love people as Jesus loves you. You find yourself asking God to show you how to help someone who is hurting. You begin praying for people about their needs instead of only petitioning God for your own benefit. You know, signs of maturing! 

THIS MORNING, God has already done this for me again. He led me to talk with him about how it feels to have people “spurn your name as evil,” and to listen to his view of what it means to “rejoice and be glad” in mistreatment and injustice. That made me so thankful for the transforming power of God in my life and got me thinking about how others might need this same encouragement. 

AND EVEN THOUGH my maturing today might seem miniscule to anyone else, God does grant us the grace to simply rest and be his beloved who are still children at heart while no longer being scared and self-protective children in our secret hearts. 

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

 

 

Note: the imagery of gentle protectors, predators, and possums, is thanks to Jim Wilder of “Life Model Works”.

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)