Tag Archive for: maturity

Maturity

I am a witness to the power of missionary service.
Serving in a foreign land, learning a new language and adjusting to a different culture makes a tremendous difference in the life of every young missionary.
Departing from home, they arrive in the mission with many childish characteristics and behaviours.
It’s time to grow up!
Time passes.
Change happens.
Far from home, they become adults.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became an adult, I put away childish things ” (1 Cor. 13:11).
Unlike childlike, childish suggests irresponsibility, being self-centred and immature.
Each of us will not mature spiritually until we choose, as the Apostle Paul phrased it, to “put away childish things.”
Missionary service is intense, demanding and frequently filled with hardship.
Yet, filled with a new purpose, each young man or woman, learns about being credible, reliable, accountable, disciplined and builds relationships of trust with God and others.
They develop their faith in God, they acquire wisdom through experience, they understand how to serve and love others.
They work hard, recognising that obedience, consistency, and endurance are all keys to success.
As they also learn to lead others, they must first master themselves and be steadfast in their service.
They choose to become Christlike and follow in His ways.
Over and over again, I watch each of them mature into adulthood.
How have you chosen to “put away childish things”?

Time

As a teenager, only moments ago, I had time aplenty. However, youth moves quickly to maturity.
Now, in my mid 50’s – I’m acutely aware of my mortality, my time here on earth is running out!
Families that were once young, are then grown, and then gone.
If we have lived through half a century, a quarter or even a fifth of a century, we know how quickly time has come and gone.
Like me, if you have lived through half a century, then you’ll know as I do that two times our lifetime isn’t very long at all!
Time is so full and yet so fleeting, and upon its use depends all the possibilities that there are.
Sometimes we can think of the past as a thing quite apart from the present. Really they are one eternal round.
As Goethe put it, “things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
Jack N. Gerard observed “We live in a world of information overload, dominated by ever-increasing distractions that make it more and more difficult to sort through the commotion of this life. Unless we take the time to reflect, we may not realise the impact of this fast-paced environment on our daily lives and the choices we make.”
As I flick through TV channels, or scroll through social media, too often I find a world saturated with incessant noise, much of which is too loud, garish and crude. We need to pause and contemplate what we choose to do with the precious gift of time, before we fritter it away in frivolous “trivial tripe!” said James E Faust.
We don’t need more time. We have all the time there is. No one has more of it than each of us has. We must manage ourselves accordingly, rather than allowing conditions to manage us. Step back from the world – ask yourself how will I measure my life?
Words may change, styles may change, the man-made manner of life may change, but the stars in the heaven retain their course, and I know that our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ, the creator of heaven and earth and all things are, remain in command.
“Time is clearly not our natural dimension. This it is that we are never really at home in time because we belong to eternity. Time, as much as any one thing, whispers that we are strangers here.” Neal A. Maxwell.
Treasure your time, value it, use it wisely. Much will come from very little effort if we slow down, observe and see.
How will you choose to use your time allotment today?