Maturity

We live in a culture that prefers immaturity to the point of desiring it.

We are always very concerned about the age of our leaders, mocking those who are older, and desiring the younger. When Mr. Obama was running against Mr. McCain, one of the major points between the two were the constant barrage of pictures showing one as older, less physically fit, and the other as young, vital, and fit. We have, as our proof in this area, many in the “press” crooning over the state of Mr. Obama’s body, as if a “nice body” in our modern definition were actually normal, or somehow provided more wisdom.
Our objects of sexual desire are always twenty-somethings, or younger (often they are younger than we know). If they aren’t twenty, then we use makeup and computer modification to make them look so. One of the highest compliments that can be paid to someone is that they look younger than they really are.
The most desired emotional maturity is that of a teenager. Girls love “bad boys,” the immature “football rough,” who runs from gadget to gadget and game to game like a starry eyed teenager, treating work as a burden. Boys love “sex toy” girls, that run from bed to bed, fighting other girls for the favor of guys, while they treat running a household as something they should hire someone else to do. Is it any wonder our relationships are so dysfunctional?

We desire to have twenty-something bodies, with seventeen year old minds. But here we kick against nature, desiring something that is not only not desirable, but something that is not possible.

The arguments already presented might give the impression that if I have acquired the virtues, then I connaturally understand certain things, while if I haven’t acquired them, then I simply don’t. If only it were so simple. Actually, the alternative lies not between a virtuously formed personality and a completely unformed personality, but between a virtuously formed personality and a personality with is in some respect formed contrary to virtue. In the former case, yes, I connaturally possess a certain disposition to right judgment. In the latter case, however, I do not simply lack this disposition; what I actually possess is a disposition to judge wrongly, with the result that I possess beliefs that aren’t true.

All things grow up. All things mature. Either they will mature as well formed images of God, or they will mature as well formed images of Satan. There is no middle ground, no matter how much we might search for one.

“I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless… Genesis 17:1

We read this verse and think God wants us to be perfect in order to receive His blessings. But this isn’t the lesson at all. God wants us to mature in His way, as an image of Him, the way He created us. He wants us to fulfill our purpose, not in terms of some cheap modern purpose, but as in the original intent and purpose, to be vice-regents to Him, images of Him in the world.

Where we go wrong is we think we can dally at the edges, choosing neither path, because the path of God is too “serious,” while the path of Satan is too “evil.” We want immaturity, we want not to choose. But of all the choices God has given us, through our free will, that is the one choice He has not given us.