What is Maturity?

Yesterday's post about quiet confidence got me thinking about maturity. Ive always been fairly mature for my age, and I remember people always commenting on how I looked and acted older than I was. I picked up quite quickly that maturity was one of these 'journey' things, just like everything else in life (so much so its becoming a bit of a cliche...).

Probably the first time I started to understand this was around 15 years old when my youth leader gave me a book, sat me down in a corner and said "Read! And don't look up 'til you've finished!" The book was called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge (great book - If you have read it then I urge you to also read 'Is God Wild at Heart? by Randy Stinson available online at www.cbmw.org/resources/reviews/eldredge_wah_review.php).

Reading this book gave me permission to live my life, permission to be a man at a time in my life when I thought there was no chance of that ever happening. It helped me to understand that maturity isn't about being sensible all the time, being boring. (This was my view of adulthood when I was a kid). Maturity also isn't about putting other people first, or about taking responsibility for your actions. It isn't about the choices we make but its about the very climate we create for our lives to play out in. Its about our focus. (Eph 4:14).

I remember my very first day of sixth-form college. The speech given by the head of college to all the new sixth-formers told the incredible story of 'The Magic Door'.

The Magic Door is a door that exists only in time, standing guard as the only passage between two opposing Worlds. Its power is unrivelled, it is always right and once someone goes through the door they can never go back. It is the door that separates the Land of Childhood from the Land of Adulthood. However the most important thing to understand about the Magic Door is that it doesn't exist...

We will never one day magically transform into the person we always wanted to be: into an adult. There is no door that washes away our naivity, our fears, our past as we walk through, leaving us to continue on in a new life, free from everything that conditioned us in our upbringing.

The apostle Paul understands this well:

'I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself. Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above. All of us who are spiritually mature should have this same attitude.' (Philippians 3:12-15)

So what is maturity in the face of tough times? To me it comes down to simple choice. I either seek to 'get through' them, or I seek to 'grow through' them.