Called to Maturity
Maturity in Christ leads people to upright and loving behavior, but for a person’s behavior to be upright and loving, two things must be true: first, it must be done for Christ’s sake, and second, it must be done from that person’s heart and not yours.
You can bully people in their knees, but you can’t make them pray. You can coerce them into parting with their money, but you can’t force them into the grace of giving. You can emotionally intimidate people into reading the Bible, but you can’t thumbscrew them into the loving appreciation of truth. You can browbeat them into using words about Christ and religious convictions, but you can’t buffalo them into joyously verbalizing about the Master they love and wish to love more. You can say what you like, bet there’s a difference between a heart response to a noble challenge and a person who conforms for fear of being looked down on or ostracized.
Mature behavior has the full support of my inner world. It is behavior not foreign to me. I don’t do it just because you want me to. It’s behavior I choose from within—even if I’m a bit timid about putting it into practice. It isn’t something I’m “putting on” simply because you would have me do it. It is behavior that expresses my inner condition as distinct from what I do to gain your favor.
It’s okay for children to do what their parents want them to do, even if their own hearts don’t approve. That has it’s own grandeur. It’s okay for me to receive guidance from others in areas of ignorance or timidity, but the operative word is receive. I want it;it hasn’t been forced on me. In fact, confessing limitations and asking for help and guidance can be a sign of maturity.
I stand my little girl before me. I tell her to make her own decision in choosing between two gifts I’m offering her. “This one is really the best,” I say, pointing to A. “Go ahead, make your choice.” She looks for a while and makes for B. I stop her and say, “Look, A is really much better than B.” She thinks some more and goes for B. I stop her again (I can’t understand this kid). “Look, I’ve told you that A is better than B. How often do I have to tell you. Now make your choice.” She looks at me a while and then slowly chooses A. “Attagirl,” I tell her. “I’m glad you chose the best.” But I notice as she walks off that she isn’t as buoyant about the gift as I thought she would be. Ah, well, gratitude is a scarce commodity.
The child conformed; she didn’t choose. I knew what was best for her, so I took away her freedom to choose. I offered her three gifts—A, B and choice—and reneged on the most important one!
We urge believers to pursue their own commitment to Christ; but not content to lay before them possibilities, we proceed to make numerous decisions for them. If they happen to protest, we think them rebels or ungrateful.
People who dominate us in this fashion aren’t completely to blame, for we put up with it—even encourage it. The charismatic leader is too much for us. He bowls us over, overwhelms us with his choice and we fall into line. Of course, in matters of clear-cut good or evil, we all have a right to speak decisively. But the problems lie in the areas of judgment, advice, counsel, and precisely how a mature Christian would act.
Maturity involves more than orthodox or approved conduct—the choice must be mine! If what I do or say is to be an expression of my maturity, it must live out what is mine within.
To correctly formulate the “proofs” given for a particular doctrinal position without an inner approval of it is no mark of maturity. The child repeats words and sounds after us without understanding what they mean, without personal appropriation of them. That’s fine for a child; but maturity rejects rote repetition as the child grows into an adult. The early math student repeats the formulas, like a parrot, without a real appreciation of them; but when the student blossoms into a Whitehead, Russell, or Einstein, he leaves mere memorization behind.
It’s all right to be ignorant, you understand; it’s all right to be immature. But we learn to recognize our condition, and we look for growth. Growth is more than answers, more than approved conduct. It is the ability to weigh advice, knowing how to say “no” in a good way, when others are wanting you to say “yes.” It isn’t wrong to “go along.” Sometimes to “go along” is a mark of maturity—to forfeit rights, to sink your own view (which you think is better, clearer)—these may be marks of real maturity. But to live on someone else’s convictions, to be carried along without being fully persuaded in your own mind is something else.
