Grown Up

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.... When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." --C.S. Lewis

I found this quote when I was writing Fairy Tales, and I love it! I have told people for ten years that I refuse to outgrow things like slides, and swings, and riding a grocery cart down an empty aisle (after all, I wouldn't want to hurt anyone! ;)), and happily ever afters! Well, sadly, I HAVE outgrown swings-- not because I think I'm too "grown up" but because it now upsets my stomach and hurts my head. I've had several friends recommend switching the playground swing for a porch swing... but it's not the same! =( But I don't expect to outgrow juvenile fiction. I prefer to pull fiction from the juvenile side of the library. In fact, now my oldest daughter and I fight (the playful kind) over the same books! =D I especially like fantasy in the kids' section because you still get the happy endings! The authors there aren't so concerned with making their stories seem "realistic".

So I've been pondering a little more about being "grown up". When I was a kid, I thought that to be "grown up" meant choices and autonomy. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, with few or no consequences... How WRONG I was!!! And I'd imagine (after dealing with MANY children) that this is a pretty common expectation. But the Bible's explanation of "growing up" is drastically different. Growing up is knowing our Savior better.

...until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:13-16

And growing in love.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
1 Corinthians 13:4-11

And growing in responsibility.

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:2-5

That's a pretty TALL order! But the good news is that Christ DID "grow up" according to God's definition. And He did it PERFECTLY! =)

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
Luke 2:52
 
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
1 Corinthians 1:28-31
 
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21