An Invitation Into Maturity

For some time now, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of maturity. What does it actually look like? How can I become a more mature person?

The only conclusion I’ve come to is this: maturity is found in a place no one wants to go. It lives on the other side of discomfort. It clothes itself in pain, agony, and suffering.

But here’s the interesting part the only way to experience the fruit of maturity is by walking through maturity. It’s looking at difficult situations and saying, “This is God’s invitation into a greater degree of glory.”

Jesus wants you to be mature. In Matthew 5:48, He says,
“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Now, the word “perfect” here doesn’t mean flawless like we often think in English. In the Greek and Aramaic (the original languages of the Bible), the word actually means: mature, complete, or fully developed.

God wants you to become fully developed. But that only happens through the refining fire.

Even God sent Jesus to be tested—so what makes us think we won’t be?

Matthew 4:1 says,
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”

Here’s the beautiful part: Jesus had the Holy Spirit, and He knew His identity as the beloved Son. So when the devil came to tempt Him, He rebuked him.
And guess what? You and I have the same Spirit and the same authority.

The majority of people in our society (Christians included!!!) love to play the victim. We have such a twisted view of hardship: “The devil is out to get me.”

I hate to break it to you, but he’s probably not. He’s got bigger things to disrupt than making you late to work or getting you lost in a doom scroll.

It’s time to level up. Change your perspective on difficulty. Adopt the mindset that God is forming something beautiful in you right in the middle of the struggle.

Hope this helps,
Daniel

p.s - I took a little break from doing these but I’ll be getting back into the groove of consistency! A lot of new and exciting things have shaken out in my life lately so my mind has been occupied elsewhere but I appreciate everyone who actually reads these. I forgot how therapeutic writing these was for me so I’m excited to get back to it. Talk sooooon.