One impediment to Growing Up is our fear of change, even if that change is a good one.
We would rather wallow in familiar misery than create future benefits. Even though our pain and unhappiness may be real and true, we put up with it because the condition we are in doesn’t require much of us. To change, we know, will require much of us. We may have to move, we may have to meet new people, we may have to leave a job, we may have to quit a behavior, go to the doctor or therapist, and lose convenience.
Humans are strange. Our desires are so strong for something better but our fear of change can often leave us stuck. We all have seen relationships that ended because the couple refused to work on anything, refused to recognize they may be part of the problem, and would rather end everything than start to change.
How easily we turn into a childish mindset, demanding a reward to come to us with no sacrifice. The truth is, any change worth achieving will take work to get it.
The Bible is full of stories where growth didn’t happen until the people involved were willing to change. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years before God allowed them to enter the Promise Land. Their immature mindset made them unfit for the land that was promised and they had to Grow Up and rethink their priorities and learn to trust God in all things.
Peter had to accept the fact that his best path was Jesus’ path and not his own. Jesus asked him three times, “do you love me?” Peter finally realizes that for him to love Jesus meant that he had to serve Jesus and the people assigned to Peter’s care. Quickly, we see the transformation of Peter from trying to manufacture results on his terms to being filled by the Spirit of God and drawing thousands to the Gospel. Peter had to put aside his fear that change would be a defeat. Change was his victory.
The Christian life you want will not be handed out to you like a free sample at the grocery store. Growing Up may require you to face your fear of change and force you to abandon habits, patterns, friends, schools, jobs, and your childish mindset.
What change is God calling you to now? Is your initial reaction fear? Perhaps that is a sign that what you fear most is what most needs to change.
The life you want will require change and often it will be personal and hard but to be in God’s will and to start to put on the life he has planned for us is a perfectly safe place to be and will be overflowing with divine rewards.
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