Am I Mature Yet?

I’ve reached a juncture in my life where I’m being confronted with the difference between growth and maturity, and I’m starting to notice more and more the effects and evidence of both and what it actually takes to “count [trials] all joy” as Scripture commands (James 1:2-4).

The reason the Bible warns us against despising trials as if something strange were happening is because that’s exactly how we’re prone to act (1 Peter 4:12). Something messes with us, and we immediately think, “What is this? What the heck? This wasn’t in the itinerary. Where is this in the Bible? Why, God, why?”

But if two of the biggest biblical heroes didn’t escape the mess of maturity, what makes us think we will?

I’m talking about David and Jesus.

I’ve been studying David and following Jesus my whole life, or most of it at least. But because the Bible is a living Word and Jesus is a Living God, I’m still learning.

If you’re familiar with David, the warrior shepherd boy turned king of Israel, you know that he’s primarily famous for being a man after God’s own heart, and God called him that when he was still pretty young, likely somewhere in his teens, tending his father’s sheep in relative obscurity. God told the prophet Samuel to tell King Saul, “I have chosen someone to rule Israel who is better than you, a man after my own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). He said He could see into David’s heart, and that was more important than what was on the outside.

Wow, right? What a compliment from God. That would be enough for most of us. How would we even achieve that? Over time though, I’ve been learning that to be after the heart of God isn’t as complicated as we make it out to be. It just means that God’s heart is your top priority, what you seek after. Rather than living your “own life” and hoping for God’s blessing, you are continually seeking to understand what God is doing and align your steps with His Spirit.

According to God therefore, David was already better than Saul at such a young age. However, the shepherd boy was not immediately promoted to the throne. God didn’t let that tender heart bypass the maturing process that was going to help him sustain tenderness when he was tested with the things that broke Saul.

God took David’s tender, warlike, passionate, sensitive, worshipful heart through a series of challenges that tore him apart. He allowed him to be buffeted through years of trial and rejection in order to learn what Saul refused to.

Israel’s first king experienced God’s power but very quickly shifted from worshipping the Giver to seeking the power itself, obsessed with how it looked to others and would affect his glory.

God saw that David was different, but that didn’t mean his success on the throne was inevitable. God wanted to see if David would still be willing to fight His battles, worship Him, trust Him, serve Him, and teach others about Him when everything that made it easy was stripped away.

The tender heart of David we all admire was just the beginning.

Maturity happens through so much pruning that you can sometimes feel like you’re being dismantled. David definitely expressed these thoughts throughout the Psalms. Many of them could be paraphrased like this: “God, you were pleased with me, and everything was so wonderful. Why couldn’t we just keep going with the joy and celebrations? Why must I be cast out, forsaken, in pain? Is this going to last forever?”

But in the midst of all that, David continued to seek after the heart of God and allow that heart to be fully matured within him.

And then, there’s Jesus.

Even though He was the Son of God from the beginning, He submitted Himself to learning obedience through suffering (Hebrews 5:8-10). Not just the ultimate suffering of bearing the sins of the whole world on the Cross, but also the painful daily steps of submission to the Father through a human life. Learning to surrender every feeling, every thought, every word…everything.

If Jesus didn’t escape that, why should we?

We (the church) will fail to mature if we fail to recognize this.

Our salvation is the beginning--the exciting and beautiful and tender anointing moment where there’s so much grace and unearned favor and we’re awash in God’s beauty and love and righteousness imparted to us by His kindness. We should never stop rejoicing in that; it’s our bedrock. Our foundation.

But Scripture clearly indicates that we haven’t grasped the whole picture if we don’t take our salvation into the rest of life, working it out in all the gory, messy, sweaty realities that Paul’s letters depict using phrases like fight the good fight, press on, endure, strive in His energy, do not fail to obtain, run to win.

If all we know how to do is sit at the Cross meditating on how undeserved it was, we will misinterpret a lot of what happens in our lives…the painful realities that are actually opportunities to mature into the image of Christ by entering into His sufferings for the glory beyond it. It’s easier to stay in the pastures worshipping as a humble shepherd. It’s harder to take that tender obedience out into the world and have it tested through the harshest battles imaginable.

So, here’s how I’m encouraging you today.

Celebrate the fact that Jesus’ Blood and not your works earned you salvation, but don’t stop there. Embrace life in His grace, recognizing that it was given to you as a scholarship, an invitation to take hold of the life of Christ and fulfill His purposes as you live out your years on Earth. And that won’t always be easy and pretty.

Sometimes it will involve passing tests that unlock fresh favor. But other times it will look more like Jesus sweating blood and David screaming in caves…choosing God’s will again and again and trusting what He’s doing through it all.

That’s the difference God wants to make in us because of what He did at the Cross. That’s real maturity being worked out for the joy set before us. It’s extremely painful. It’s infinitely valuable.

Do you still want it?