Adulting 101
Truth be told, many of us don't ever want to 'grow up' - we want to live as 'children' our whole lives. It may be the result of thinking it will be a whole lot easier to just go through life naive, but that vantage point can get us into a whole lot of trouble. It might actually be a little selfishness on our part, no wanting to actually do the 'work' of growing up because it will mean we have to stop doing some things and start doing others. Regardless of the reason behind our 'foot dragging' as we approach our growth in a spiritual sense, the fact remains that we cannot continue as children forever! We need to grow up - putting into practice over and over again the things we have learned until they become second-nature to us. Today they have coined that term "adulting' - maybe what we should admit we haven't accomplished the true consistency we need in the tasks we consider to be 'mundane' in our spiritual walk. If we want to grow up in Christ, we commit equally to the 'mundane' as we do the 'sensational'.
My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6-7 MSG)
The concept of 'adulting' is that the individual is responsible for their actions - they are consistent in their behavior, especially when it comes to doing the things one considers 'mundane'. These mundane tasks are actually necessary ones and cannot be ignored. Ignore the laundry long enough and you will run out of clean underwear. Ignore the dust bunnies gathering everywhere and you will soon discover you might not be breathing as well in your own home. We can ignore the mundane in life, but it costs us something when we do. We can ignore the 'mundane' in our spiritual life, but it will cost us even more than we may realize!
As a baby, my children were able to drink from a bottle at a very early age. They could not hold that bottle on their own, though. As they got a little bigger, their hands would surround the bottle and in pretty short order they had learned how to hold it on their own. Eventually they graduated to those 'sippy cups' that have a lid on it, but they had to adapt to not sucking like a bottle because they would drown themselves if they did! As we grow up, there are all kinds of 'adjustments' made to adapt to the current tasks at hand. We are learning new things, not for the sake of gathering knowledge, but so we can put it into practice in our lives.
As little babies, cute and cuddly as they were, I didn't mind holding the bottle for my kids. As toddlers I expected them to begin to do some of these things on their own. Why? It is part of growing up. God isn't much different with his expectations of us - he expects us to do the things that reveal we are growing up! The words of our passage are quite clear - we all need to start living what we have been studying. It is fine to 'take in' new truth - now we need to take what we know and put it into practice. We won't get it right all of the time, but as we do practice it more and more, we will. This is how consistency develops new habits and habits become routine.
It isn't that we aren't well-rooted because we are. It isn't that we aren't secure on a good foundation because we are. It is that we aren't becoming 'adults' in Christ! We aren't 'adulting' well in our spiritual life. We are turned off by what some label as mundane - things like consistent study of the Word, relational development with other believers, and getting honest with God in our times of communication. We call this Bible study, church-going, and prayer - these are the religious words for these 'mundane' tasks. Look not at these as 'tasks' so much as the source of what keeps life moving along for us. Maybe if we begin to see them as less 'mundane' and more 'important' we might just 'adult' well! Just sayin!
My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6-7 MSG)
The concept of 'adulting' is that the individual is responsible for their actions - they are consistent in their behavior, especially when it comes to doing the things one considers 'mundane'. These mundane tasks are actually necessary ones and cannot be ignored. Ignore the laundry long enough and you will run out of clean underwear. Ignore the dust bunnies gathering everywhere and you will soon discover you might not be breathing as well in your own home. We can ignore the mundane in life, but it costs us something when we do. We can ignore the 'mundane' in our spiritual life, but it will cost us even more than we may realize!
As a baby, my children were able to drink from a bottle at a very early age. They could not hold that bottle on their own, though. As they got a little bigger, their hands would surround the bottle and in pretty short order they had learned how to hold it on their own. Eventually they graduated to those 'sippy cups' that have a lid on it, but they had to adapt to not sucking like a bottle because they would drown themselves if they did! As we grow up, there are all kinds of 'adjustments' made to adapt to the current tasks at hand. We are learning new things, not for the sake of gathering knowledge, but so we can put it into practice in our lives.
As little babies, cute and cuddly as they were, I didn't mind holding the bottle for my kids. As toddlers I expected them to begin to do some of these things on their own. Why? It is part of growing up. God isn't much different with his expectations of us - he expects us to do the things that reveal we are growing up! The words of our passage are quite clear - we all need to start living what we have been studying. It is fine to 'take in' new truth - now we need to take what we know and put it into practice. We won't get it right all of the time, but as we do practice it more and more, we will. This is how consistency develops new habits and habits become routine.
It isn't that we aren't well-rooted because we are. It isn't that we aren't secure on a good foundation because we are. It is that we aren't becoming 'adults' in Christ! We aren't 'adulting' well in our spiritual life. We are turned off by what some label as mundane - things like consistent study of the Word, relational development with other believers, and getting honest with God in our times of communication. We call this Bible study, church-going, and prayer - these are the religious words for these 'mundane' tasks. Look not at these as 'tasks' so much as the source of what keeps life moving along for us. Maybe if we begin to see them as less 'mundane' and more 'important' we might just 'adult' well! Just sayin!
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