One of the things that has fascinated me as I have endured the process of growing up, is how much of life happens automatically and how much doesn’t.
When we are born, nobody hands us an instruction manual explaining how to grow physically. We don’t have to remember to get taller. We don’t need a daily checklist reminding us to grow teeth. We don’t need a course on how to become an adult-sized human being. If we are healthy, growth simply happens.
A baby becomes a toddler. A toddler becomes a child. A child becomes a teenager. A teenager becomes an adult.
That part of life is remarkably automatic.
Because physical growth happens so naturally, many of us assume that maturity works the same way. We assume that because we are getting older, we are also becoming wiser. We assume that experience automatically produces maturity. We assume that time itself will somehow transform us into the people we were meant to become.
Looking back, I think I spent many years believing exactly that.
I assumed that maturity was waiting for me somewhere in the future. If I simply lived long enough, worked hard enough, raised a family, paid my bills, and accumulated enough life experience, then one day I would arrive. Maturity would be the natural outcome of getting older.
The problem is that life keeps presenting us with evidence that this is not true.
Nowhere is that evidence more visible than in our relationships.
Most of us enter adulthood believing that adults know how to behave like adults. We assume that once we are old enough to get married, raise children, hold down jobs, and make important decisions, maturity will naturally accompany those responsibilities.
Yet many couples discover something quite different.
An offhand comment becomes an argument. A misunderstanding turns into a day of silence. A criticism lingers long after it was spoken. The issue is often not the event itself but the way we respond to it.
Joan and I have been married long enough to know that relationships have an amazing ability to reveal what is really happening inside us. They expose our strengths, our weaknesses, our fears, and sometimes our immaturity.
A spouse can say something that nobody else could say and immediately trigger a reaction. A friend can unintentionally touch a sensitive area. A family member can provoke feelings we thought we had long outgrown.
Relationships have a way of shining a spotlight on parts of us that we would rather not examine.
The more uncomfortable discovery is that sometimes we see those patterns in ourselves.
Have you ever reacted to your spouse and surprised yourself?
Have you ever heard yourself say something and immediately wished you could take it back?
Have you ever found yourself becoming defensive before you had even fully understood what was being said?
Have you ever wondered why a simple comment from someone you love could affect you so deeply?
I know I have.
There have been many occasions when I have looked back at a conversation and asked myself, “Why did I react like that?”
The older I get, the more I realise that age and maturity are not the same thing.
Age happens automatically.
Maturity does not.
Age is a gift of time.
Maturity is the result of a process.
That process requires something from us.
It requires honesty. It requires self-awareness. It requires a willingness to examine ourselves. Most importantly, it requires a willingness to admit that we may not be as mature as we would like to think we are.
That is not always easy.
Human beings generally find it easier to identify the weaknesses of other people than the weaknesses within themselves. I can usually see what Joan needs to improve long before I notice the areas in which I need to grow. The problem, of course, is that Joan can probably say exactly the same thing about me.
Relationships often become frustrating when both people are concentrating on the growth required by the other person while ignoring the growth required in themselves.
Yet real growth begins when the spotlight turns inward.
One of the reasons I wrote Little ME & Little YOU is because Joan and I discovered that there was a journey to maturity that we had never fully understood when we were younger. We had assumed that becoming Christians would automatically solve certain problems. We had assumed that knowing the truth would automatically change us. We had assumed that maturity would somehow emerge naturally as the years passed.
What we discovered instead was that growth is much more intentional than that.
The Bible speaks often about growth, maturity, training, learning, obedience, and transformation. None of those words suggest something passive. They all suggest participation.
A seed has the potential to become a tree, but it still has to grow.
A child has the potential to become an adult, but maturity involves more than simply adding years.
The same is true for us.
The encouraging news is that growth is possible. We are not trapped by our weaknesses. We are not prisoners of our past. We can change. We can mature. We can become more than we are today.
The first step, however, is recognising that growth is not automatic.
It never was.
And perhaps that is where every healthy relationship begins—not with trying to change the other person, but with allowing God to continue changing us.
Reflection Question
In what area of your life have you become older without necessarily becoming more mature?
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Take a closer look at my book, Little Me & Little You, where this is discussed in greater detail.
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