paul and corinna and lucas' blog

So the saying goes, “When I was a child [or shortie if you're a gangsta], I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

A lot of people seem to think maturity is to do with age – “a year older and a year wiser” – but I've noticed that personal growth isn't automatic. You have to deliberately put effort in, it doesn't just come naturally. (Unless by nature you're a natural 'grower', but that's rare. Most of us prefer the comfort of familiarity and routine and no change over relentlessly pushing ourselves into bigger and harder things.)

As a birthday card I saw recently put it: “Ageing is inevitable, maturing is optional!”

Being immature isn't life threatening, and it can seem like it's not causing any harm because the harm isn't immediate or obvious. But it hurts those we do life with as well as damaging ourselves. It can rob you of happiness and even health. And the tragedy is how it limits us – it keeps us living a 'small' life that can only handle 'small' things – so it robs you of your potential too. Whether you believe it or not, no matter how old you are, we all have bags of potential, but it is impossible to achieve it without maturing.

If you're a christian, immaturity can stop you fulfilling God's plan for your life, and hold you back from reaching all the people you were meant to reach, so you can understand why God's not neutral on growth!! One problem is, immaturity doesn't immediately present itself as sin. We know God wants us to keep growing, but we still see it as optional. Don't get me wrong, rest is fine, in fact it's an essential part of growth (as any gym devotee will tell you) but God doesn't look too kindly on permenent rest! (Parable of the fig tree, parable of the talents, etc.)

I'm not claiming to be 'Mr. Mature' or anything, but here are some examples of the kind of thing I see in mature people that's lacking in immature:

• Are still growing. Mature people keep growing – they are maturing rather than mature. They didn't reach a point and stop growing. They're teachable, open to new things, they try to learn from everyone, etc. Immature people think of themselves as better than other people. They don't like to be challenged. They prefer to keep busy so they can avoid looking at themselves.
• Takes responsibility, especially for the consequences of their own actions. They just get on with fixing the problem, and maybe later look at improving the process. Immature people prefer to look for people to blame when something goes wrong. When things need doing, mature people get on with doing them. But you can't rely on an immature person because they buckle under pressure or procrastinate.
• Difficult to offend. Immature people get upset at others easily and hold on to it for ages – they don't really 'get' forgiveness, even for tiny things. In fact, they sometimes actively look for things to get offended about. They love to keep score and have an automatic defensive attitude response, whereas mature people 'keep short accounts' and would rather be productive than take part in pointless bickering. (Admittedly I had a headstart on this one because it's nigh on impossible to upset my parents!)
• Does things deliberately. Mature people don’t just react to whatever life throws at them, they don’t just do whatever they feel like at the time. They do things thought through and intentional, they make decisions and stick to them. For example, they quit strategically. Sure, there are times when you have to bring something to an end, lots of things have their season, no use flogging a dead horse! But mature people quit things on purpose because it fits in with their plan. Whereas immature people quit out of reaction when the going gets tough because they just want to ease the pressure.
• Understands investment. Maturity says "if anything's worth doing it will be hard work", immaturity says "if anything's hard work it's not worth doing".
  • Mature people are willing to sacrifice in the short term for a future gain, immature people only want the easiest immediate route. They go for the easy choice, but mature people look for the best choice.
  • Mature people realise that if they're going to get anywhere in life, they're going to have to work for it. Immature people expect other people to do everything for them. In christians this often comes out as expecting God to do everything for you.
• Doesn't live stressed. Everyone has to deal with stress sometimes, but immature people get stressed out over small things, and as a consequence, can spend a lot of their life stressed out. But it takes much bigger issues to cause stress in a mature person. They are comfortable with asking "what if ...?" and deal with things when they happen, whereas immature people worry about about all the things that haven't and probably won't happen.
• Thinks highly of others, not just in terms of value, but also in terms of frequency (i.e. often) and 'how can I help that person'. Immature people are quite often self-centred.
  • Appreciates others for who they are. Immature people love to manipulate and control others for their own benefit, through things like guilt trips and emotional blackmail.
  • Loves it when others succeed. They encourage others and even help them achieve. But immature people often have that selfish ambition – they want to be seen as much better than everyone else so would rather they don't succeed. Some enjoy watching others fail because it makes them look good. They love to talk themselves up, self-promote. They want to be the big cheese. They would rather be the 'big fish in a small pond' than 3rd or 4th in a team. I’m not saying recognition is evil, but immaturity can make you preoccupied with it.
• Open to risk. It's a subtle one, maybe counter-intuitive, but I think the maturer you are, the more willing you are to take more and bigger risks, but as you do so, you also get better at knowing which risks are worth taking. And even when things don't turn out as you hoped, maturity learns and grows from the setback. Whereas immaturity doesn't want you to take any risks at all, and therefore can't learn which risks are worth taking because it never takes any!
• Can follow leaders. Immature people make difficult employees because they refuse to be led, don't want to be there, or have major problems with authority. It can be the same in church. It's so easy to say "I follow God" when he's so easy to ignore! But it seems very difficult for a lot of people to follow their unignorable, entirely fallable, in-your-face sinner, God-placed leaders. They would rather 'read the bible' (and ignore all the bits that describe how God almost always works by using humans to lead others). Or if they do try to follow their leaders, and it gets too challenging, some maintain their immature independence and skip on to the next church...
• Trustworthy/reliable/dependable. You might not know how they'll choose to do it, but you can trust the mature with £billion decisions; the immature scofts at the decisions they make but you can't trust them to make your cheeseburger!
• Stable. Immature people are unstable even when there's no turbulence!
• Prefers the spirit to the letter of the law. Immature people love enforcing petty rules, hiding behind policy. In the church, this comes out as a religious spirit. Mature people live with God's way 'written on their heart', immature people try to see what they can get away with.
• Sees something working in their own life before they teach it. Like the 'speck in someone else's eye', immature people love to point out where others are going wrong and what they should be doing instead, when it doesn't even work in their own life. Or they spout theories that they haven't actually tested or experienced and don't know if they even work.
• And there are probably loads more, say: how they deal with inconvenience, how they focus on important things whereas immature people focus on trivial things, how they see the harm in gossip, how they have confidence without being over-confident or having no self-confidence...

My theory is a lot of immaturity is linked to insecurity. If you're secure in yourself, you're not easily offended, you aren’t threatened by others, you worry less, and see things more for what they are, etc.

So I guess the moral of the story is, we might as well grow up because life's better for everyone there! This is a constant challenge to me because I want that better life.

(And for Christian leaders, Ephesians 4 is pretty key on this. Our purpose is “to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature … we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ”. So it’s our job to get people to grow up!)