The first time I heard this, it was about 25 years ago, and I have to tell you, I was absolutely astonished. One of the third graders in my class—a beautiful little girl who was totally indulged by her parents—announced to me that she had no intention of growing up. Her parents had convinced her that all the fun in life happened when you were a child and she wasn’t about to let go of having fun.
She sounded like Peter Pan.
Only Peter Pan wasn’t written as a defense of childhood; it was actually written as a tragedy, a little boy who refused to see the continuum of life as the wonderful adventure it was, and instead, wanted to simply live without responsibility (and rather wildly), spending his life doing only those things that children want to do. There’s a great sadness in the fact that many, many people today don’t want to mature, don’t want to become adults. They simply want to stay young. Why? Because, for the vast majority of them, they lived their childhoods without responsibilities and totally indulged. I have to tell you, that is the opposite of how I was raised (in a Christian home). Growing up, my sister and I had many responsibilities and very little freedom of choice. I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to become an adult so that I would have the chance to make my own decisions. I wanted adult responsibilities because I knew that being an adult was really what life was about. Childhood was simply training for that "later."
In the last decades (perhaps almost a century), as we have embraced the idea of being "just saved,"we have morphed into sadly immature Christians. It’s almost as if we believe that salvation is an "easy" button that we can push once and be done. Actually, if we are honest, I think most of us like it like that. If we don’t have to worry about improving ourselves toward righteousness, then we can stay self-indulged and surround ourselves with comfort food, comfort people, and comfort activities. We don’t have to develop the discipline to learn how to live as Christians. Why bother? We’re saved and God loves us "so much." And never mind working toward anything; if God wanted us to change, He’d change us Himself. Of course, I’m speaking sarcastically because none of this is what scripture says. In fact, this passage in Hebrews is actually a strong admonition against such attitudes. It is an admonish to grow up and become mature believers in Christ, Christian "adults," as it were. We should, by this time, be actively teaching those around us what it means to distinguish good from evil, not only through our words, but through our lives. We should be experts because, through constant use, we have trained ourselves.
Why are our churches filled with divorces, addictions, emotional problems, and unbelief? We are still very much spiritual infants. We have to immerse ourselves in books, conferences, and the like on the very basic fact that God loves us when that is totally a Christianity 101 issue! We should have moved beyond the need to know that we are loved and are training ourselves—through constant use—of the differences between good and evil. We should be daily moving toward righteousness in every fashion and in every facet of our lives. We need to stop running away from our duty as Christians and mature in the faith so that others will know that they can follow our example with the assurance that we are spiritually trustworthy.
We need to grow up.
© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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