Today, at Bible class, a sister of the faith said something to me that I will not soon forget.\u00a0 As I grieved the fact that I find myself struggling still with certain issues that I thought would have long since been resolved, she told me that I actually should be needing God more and more, that being “mature” in the faith would reflect greater dependence on him.\u00a0 Wow, I imagine this way of thinking might not fit most of our definitions of “mature.”\u00a0 \u00a0I realized today that, when I think of the word, I envision needing others less than I’ve ever needed them before.\u00a0 “I really do have to grow up,” I tell myself repeatedly.\u00a0 “Surely I can handle things on my own this time.”\u00a0 This is how I’ve been defining maturity.\u00a0 Now I know I’m wrong.<\/p>\n
In Scripture, we are told that the apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was never removed.\u00a0 God did, however, give Paul the grace to live with that thorn, whatever it might have been (none of us knows exactly what Paul’s thorn was); we do know, though, that he was able to do life thorn and all because he chose to do life with, in and through Christ who gave him the strength to do so.\u00a0 My sister of the faith told me today that she used to think growing up would mean needing God less but she had discovered that just the opposite is true; she realizes more and more that her need for God becomes greater each and every day.\u00a0 She is spot on here.\u00a0 Every minute, every second, every breath does depend solely upon him.<\/p>\n
I see now that maturity is a most humble thing–it is our realizing we should never envision ourselves arriving at a point in our lives where we can handle things all on our own; we were never meant to do that down here.\u00a0 Apparently we do live life upside down.\u00a0 Most of us seem to spend our lives trying to de-thorn ourselves instead of accepting the fact that those most unpleasant prickles are often the very things that serve to remind us God is indeed real and ever-present and ever-loving.\u00a0 “Can’t he though just take away our sufferings, our temptations?” We ask this of him.\u00a0 But, instead of always rescuing us the way that we think we would rescue one another, God chose to descend and suffer along with us.<\/p>\n
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