This past Monday night, I cleaned up the kitchen after we’d all enjoyed Stephanie’s giant, belated St. Patrick’s Day feast. As I finished scrubbing the last pan, I noticed there was a stillness in the air. The rush and banter and ornery, bed-time laughter of our three kidlets had disappeared. Our home was quiet. Not a peep was heard. Not even (thankfully) a mouse.
My wife had worn herself out cooking up a delicious storm of Irish delicacies. Everlynn and Carson had particularly enjoyed the corned beef, cabbage, and soda bread – stuffing themselves to full satisfaction. Hudson, our oldest, finally ground through the last of his homework assignments.
Now they all lay soundly and peacefully asleep.
I quietly tiptoed into our foyer so as not to disturb my sleeping bunnies. There I noticed three little shoes. The first was really not so small, for Hudson’s feet had rapidly grown over the last year.
Everlynn’s dainty black shoe was propped up nearby; its pretty little bow adorning the toe.
Carson’s half-pint sneaker sat to the left as if to say, “I know I’m the smallest, but don’t forget about me!”
So quickly they are growing!
Within the blink of an eye, they’ll be moving up to the next shoe size. As fast as the sun rises, they’ll be sailing through school, and then asking me for the keys to the truck.
I’ll turn my head, look back, and they’ll be off to college, setting their own dreams, married, and Lord willing, raising their own families…. all with tiny shoes next to their front door, too.
How the days and years fly by… I vividly remember the look of each child just moments after birth. I gazed into their eyes and they stared deeply into mine. Words weren’t necessary. Love cradled us at first sight.
As all Jesus-loving parents should, I ask God to give me guidance and strength to “train up [our] children in the way they should go” (Proverbs 22:6). I pray that I do not make a practice of “provoking my children to anger so that they are discouraged” (Colossians 3:21), but instead demonstrate love, faithfulness, and hope. They soak up what we do like fresh sponges on water. Knowing my many faulty and sinful propensities, I regularly cry out: “Oh Lord, guide me to love them as you love me. May they find an example to imitate in me, as I follow Christ!”
Growing is Good
Yet as much as I become misty-eyed by their rapid growth, their maturation process is a very good thing, too. I’m extremely glad to only be changing lil’ Carson’s diaper these days. I’m thankful I won’t need to brush my children’s teeth before their first job interview or on their wedding day. That would be fairly awkward.
As those reborn – “born from above” – in Jesus Christ, we, too, are designed to grow. Toddlers eventually must move on from their mama’s milk to solid food. Their new, sharp teeth tend to spur on that process! The same holds true for believers in Jesus: we are born of God to mature in Christ.
The writer to the Hebrews informs us,
“…solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14).
The apostle Paul weighed in with a similar warning to the believers in Corinth:
“I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3a)
Two Indicators of Growth
So how about you and me? First, are good, spiritual growing pains spurring us on to be more and more like Jesus? Or do we still slip into infantile, childish attitudes and words of jealousy, pride, discontment, or anger?
Second, just as I pray my children eventually marry and are blessed with little shoes by their front doors one day, so the final test of spiritual maturity is reproduction. We are born of God to reproduce in Christ.
We all are called to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). Clearly, Paul’s command to Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5), isn’t limited to just those in full-time pastoral ministry.
So are you and I actively seeking to reproduce the life of Christ in other people? God has called, equipped, and empowered us for this purpose – a life of maturing in Jesus Christ to the praise of His grace.
_______________________
I, again, look back at those three cute, little shoes. Although our home was still and silent, the seemingly insignificant clutter in the foyer was shouting a message, “We’re growing, Papa!”
What about you?
