The Continuum of Maturity
I met a new friend yesterday who was transitioning from teaching high school kids to teaching the same material to college students. I surmised out loud that he had had an excellent opportunity to test his material, and he agreed. You know the difference between high school seniors and college freshman, he asked? Three months' vacation.
I'm still considering this because it appropriately challenges the bright and clean lines with which we like to separate stages of maturity. A child is a high school senior. He or she steps over a magical threshold and is, we suppose, changed all at once to readiness for college. I know this not to be so from professional experience, but I still expect such dividers of demarcation in my own life and that of others. I'm learning. I got to give my testimony on the impact of a ministry I learned under in college to those representing that ministry now. I said some of the seeds planted in that fertile era are still coming up as I walked in my identity in Christ more so than my identity as a person regarded as popular or productive. Moreover, I surprised myself by confessing cheerfully that I hoped I could look back on the state of my faith now and see similar growth over the next 10 years, even though middle-age does not provide the obvious, optical rites of passage that adolescence does.
With this perspective in place, it was an interesting time to come upon the parable in Luke 18:9-14 comparing the heart of the repentant tax collector with that of the prideful Pharisee as they stand side-by-side in prayer. As the college student upon whom I have had occasion to reflect back, I used this parable in my Freshman Composition class to show my broad knowledge and to demonstrate understanding of a Flannery O'Connor short story. I got an A, and I got my pride even further burnished when an otherwise cynical professor read my paper to the class. I have chuckled since at my self-satisfaction in that moment, believing that I had arrived at simultaneous favor with God and with men, and congratulating myself for having crossed over some line to More Maturity since that moment.
I look back differently now, and I may look back more differently still the next time I travel through the parable. Instead of admiring the manifestations of pride I have slain and stuffed, I'm looking for the next challenge of slippery vanity. The biggest difference between me and that high school senior, or me and that college freshman, or me in that previous chapter of my professional life is that months have passed. These are, each of them and each day in them, months in which the Father has been gracious to shine His sun on and water with His rain the parts of my character that are just, and the parts that are unjust, the soil of my heart which is readily fertile, and the soil of my heart which is rocky or thin. Months hence, or years, perhaps He will tell and toil in ways that make me marvel at least as much at His perseverance, and how far I still had to go in His grace.
I'm still considering this because it appropriately challenges the bright and clean lines with which we like to separate stages of maturity. A child is a high school senior. He or she steps over a magical threshold and is, we suppose, changed all at once to readiness for college. I know this not to be so from professional experience, but I still expect such dividers of demarcation in my own life and that of others. I'm learning. I got to give my testimony on the impact of a ministry I learned under in college to those representing that ministry now. I said some of the seeds planted in that fertile era are still coming up as I walked in my identity in Christ more so than my identity as a person regarded as popular or productive. Moreover, I surprised myself by confessing cheerfully that I hoped I could look back on the state of my faith now and see similar growth over the next 10 years, even though middle-age does not provide the obvious, optical rites of passage that adolescence does.
With this perspective in place, it was an interesting time to come upon the parable in Luke 18:9-14 comparing the heart of the repentant tax collector with that of the prideful Pharisee as they stand side-by-side in prayer. As the college student upon whom I have had occasion to reflect back, I used this parable in my Freshman Composition class to show my broad knowledge and to demonstrate understanding of a Flannery O'Connor short story. I got an A, and I got my pride even further burnished when an otherwise cynical professor read my paper to the class. I have chuckled since at my self-satisfaction in that moment, believing that I had arrived at simultaneous favor with God and with men, and congratulating myself for having crossed over some line to More Maturity since that moment.
I look back differently now, and I may look back more differently still the next time I travel through the parable. Instead of admiring the manifestations of pride I have slain and stuffed, I'm looking for the next challenge of slippery vanity. The biggest difference between me and that high school senior, or me and that college freshman, or me in that previous chapter of my professional life is that months have passed. These are, each of them and each day in them, months in which the Father has been gracious to shine His sun on and water with His rain the parts of my character that are just, and the parts that are unjust, the soil of my heart which is readily fertile, and the soil of my heart which is rocky or thin. Months hence, or years, perhaps He will tell and toil in ways that make me marvel at least as much at His perseverance, and how far I still had to go in His grace.
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