I recently read a story about a little boy whose parents always made a point of putting him to bed and listening to his prayers each evening. One night, after he had said his night-time prayers, his parents went downstairs and began talking over the things of the day. About an hour later they heard a thud on the floor, and they ran hurriedly upstairs. As they entered their son’s room, they found him climbing sleepily into bed. As the father tucked the boy under the covers, he asked, "Son, how did you fall out of bed?" The little boy was almost back into dreamland as he rubbed his eyes sleepily and said, "Well, I don’t know, daddy; I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."
There is a great spiritual truth in this story: we won’t grow in our faith if we are determined to “stay too close to where we got in.” As children, we need the care and guidance of others; as we grow into adulthood, we are able to offer care and guidance to those younger than us in life. Likewise, as we in faith grow in God’s grace, in the knowledge of God’s word, and in character of God’s Son, we mature into Kingdom workers who can care for and guide new followers of Jesus as they in turn make the journey into spiritual maturity.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (Ephesians 4.11-16 NIV).
A key mark of Christian maturity is the ability to “spiritually reproduce,” or, in other words, to share the Gospel with others that need to hear it just as others first shared it with us. The Christian life teaches us that, as we grow in our faith, we will want to share that faith…and as we share it with others, we will in turn grow in our faith! It’s one of the best things we can do to avoid staying “too close to where we got in.”
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