God's Way Works

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Relationships

I Don’t Need to Guard Anyone’s Humility

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Have you ever read or heard something that was so subtly profound that it was almost as if you heard an audible click somewhere in your mind as a puzzle piece locked into place. Perhaps it makes something fit about life, about a relationship, or maybe just about yourself and something you’ve been struggling with.

This happened to me yesterday. I’m reading John Powell’s The Secret of Staying in Love* and absolutely loving it (I think he is becoming my new favorite author). While discussing how people can sometimes have a negative reaction to hearing someone else complimented he asked a question about himself:

“Why have I become such a jealous guardian of his humility?”

Someone is rejoicing over a victory, but I don’t want to rejoice with them because I’d hate for it to go to his head. In fact, I want to kick him when he is down because I want to make sure how much work he still has to do. He/she needs to know just how pitiful they are and I’d hate to think they were something more than what they are. I have to make sure that they hear from me exactly what I think they are capable or incapable of. Again, when did I become such a jealous guardian of their humility? When did that become my job?

Do I do this with my wife and kids? Do I see myself as the jealous guardian of the humility of my family? Do I see myself as the lone voice of wisdom that God has placed on this earth and in this family to make sure everyone knows their place? And of course, their place is somewhere subservient to me.

Oh, I’m not suggesting that I should never offer any critical advice. I’m simply suggesting I need to check my motives. Why am I so intent on making sure someone else’s head doesn’t get too big? When did that become my job? Isn’t my job as a husband to love and cherish my wife? Isn’t it to edify her and lift her up? Isn’t it to help her see what is best about her and what is glorious? Isn’t my job as a father to bring my children up to maturity, not keep them down? Isn’t my job to help them discover what their inate gifts and abilities are, providing them the encouragement and resources to pursue those things?

If my family is like me, there will be plenty of scenarios in life to help them stay humble. In fact, I’m pretty sure if humility is the thing they need to help them glorify and serve God, God is pretty good at allowing thorns in the flesh to make sure that happens.

And so again, I have to ask why I have become such a jealous guardian of their humility? Maybe the issue isn’t with my family. Maybe it is with me. Maybe I need to spend some time looking at what is going on in me to find out why their victories, rejoicing, successes, compliments cause me such inner turmoil. Perhaps I need to spend some time getting humble before God and figuring out what fears and insecurities are crippling my relationships with others.

I need to quit being the jealous guardian of others’ humility and instead be the victorious champion of their joy and well-being.

Remember, Gods’ way works for our families.

PS. I want to share a victory. I played The Settlers of Catan* with some friends. On my next turn, I was going to win the game. The friend who played just before me won and won because I wasn’t paying attention and let a trade happen that gave her the game. In time past, I would have been livid. I would have been livid at me for being so stupid as to make the mistake and definitely livid at her for taking the game from me. Instead, I was just happy to have gotten to play the game with some new friends. That may seem small to you, but you can ask my family, that is huge. It was a little sign in my book that says God really is working on me. It was a sign that reminded me God’s way really does work. Have a great week and play some games with your family.

* Yes, these were affiliate links. Trust me, you want to click on them and buy something. John Powell’s books are easy reads and truly profound and there just isn’t a game that is much more fun than Settlers of Catan. Here, I’ll give you another opportunity.

Probably Not the Best Way to Evangelize

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Hey guys, I’ll be getting back to regular posts soon. Just a lot of stuff going on right now. So, I’ll rely on the Skit Guys again today.

We all want to pass the gospel on to others, to plant the seed. But perhaps there are some ways we should avoid. The Skit Guys give a great example of that. Enjoy.

(here’s the link for my e-mail subscribers: http://edwincrozier.com/?p=1981)

Let’s Get Practical about Cherishing Our Wives

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I’m reading Jim Burns’ book, Creating an Intimate Marriage. (Yes, that is an affiliate link. Go ahead and click on it. While working on your marriage, you’ll be helping mine.) I’d like to share a paragraph from chapter 5, “Becoming a Better Communicator with Your Spouse.”

It took me a very long time in my marriage to understand that Cathy didn’t need me to fix her problems. All she wanted was for me to care. My natural tendency is to be a fix-it person. I would get fully engaged with whatever her problem was and immediately start looking for the cure. What Cathy would rather have had was a sympathetic hug and a sense that I understood and cared about her. After I became comfortable in not always trying to be her fix-it man, I realized it was much easier on our relationship to simply let her know I value her feelings.

I’m sure, husbands, this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this. It wasn’t for me either. But even though I’ve heard this over and over and over again, I keep missing it. Somehow, I think it is my job to fix her or her problems. I want to be her knight in shining armor who rides in to sweep her away from all that troubles her, destroying her would-be attackers with my cleverness. But my job is not to fix her. That is God’s job. My job is nourish and cherish her (Ephesians 5:28-29).

When my wife is stressed about about something, even if it causes her to blow up at me, what is my job? Is my job to point out all the things she did wrong that caused this? That may be my natural reaction, but that is not my job. My job is to let her know that she is really doing a great job as a wife and mother, to let her know that what she feels is valid and acceptable, and to let her know that I love her anyway. I can do that through my words or my actions or, preferably, both.

When I come home and she’s had a bad day with the kids (imagine that, having a tough day because you’re dealing with a 13-year-old, a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 2-year-old) and she starts unloading her frustrations, my natural reaction is to get defensive and start unloading back or to try to calmly explain what she did wrong all day to cause all this frustration. Guess what I’ve learned. Neither of those options ever work. First, it doesn’t relieve her frustration. Second, it doesn’t bring us closer. Third, it usually ruins the whole evening. Fourth, even on the rare occassion when I’m right about why she is frustrated, it doesn’t help her at all. Yet, over and over again, that is the way I respond. Has anyone read that definition about insanity lately?

So, here’s what I’m going to start trying to do. Hold me accountable on this one fellows (and ladies). When that happens, I want to give my wife a big hug. I want to let her cry on my shoulder if that is what she’s feeling. I want to let her know that I can tell things have been tough for her and I’m sorry about that. I want to let her know that I love her and I really do think she is a great wife and mother (I do think that). I want to see if I can take something off of her plate so the rest of her day can be easier. And I’m going to do all of that without expecting anything* in return.

What do you think? Do you think that might have a better impact on our marriage? I’m guessing it will. The fact is, my wife is pretty smart. She doesn’t generally need me to fix her problems. She can usually come up with pretty good solutions on her own. She just needs someone to let her know that having a bad day doesn’t mean she’s a bad wife and mother. It means she’s pretty normal and I love her anyway.

Alright guys, who will take on this challenge with me? Let’s quit trying to fix our wives and start turn our great ability to fix things on to fixing how we treat our wives even when they don’t act exactly the way we want.

Have a great day and remember God’s way really does work for your family.

ELC

*When I say anything, I really mean sex.

Growing Up: Part 3 (The Adult Stage)

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I recently read a very interesting book that provided an intriguing look at growing up, maturing (wait for it…wait for it… yes, here it is, an associate link: The Life Model: Living from the heart Jesus gave you). I’ve already looked at the infant stage and the child stage of maturity, today, we want to look at the adult stage (ages 13-birth of the first child).

 

The Adult Stage (13 to birth of first child)

The infant staged was marked by complete neediness. The infant neither knows what it needs or how to express its needs. Someone else has to provide for the baby’s needs. The infant moves into the childhood stage as he learns to take care of himself. The child learns how to express needs, wants and feelings. However, the only person the child is capable of caring for is self. “You will know when a person has graduated from the child level of maturity to the adult level because he will shift from a being a self-centered child to a both-centered adult. While a child needs to learn me-centered fairness (how do I make it fair for me), an adult learns we-centered fairness (how do I make it fair for us)” (pp. 21-22). If it seems that in any given relationship you have to give more, listen more, tolerate more to maintain the relationship then the other person is likely still in the child stage. By the same token, if  you spend most of your relationships complaining about how everyone else doesn’t seem to give you what you need, perhaps you are seeing a need to work on maturity in your own life. That is especially the case if you are complaining about your kids not giving enough. Sadly, in too many cases we have children in adult bodies, expecting adults in children’s bodies to provide their needs for them. That is dysfunction at its height. Yet, many of us are blinded to it because of our own immaturity.

 

There are 6 personal tasks each person must accomplish in the adult stage of maturity to move on to the next level:

  1. The adult learns to care for self and others simultaneously in mutually satisfying relationships.
  2. The adult learns to remain stable in difficult situations, and learns how to return self and others to joy.
  3. The adult learns to bond with peers and develops a group identity.
  4. The adult learns to take responsibility for how personal actions affect others, including protecting others from self.
  5. The adult learns to contribute to the community; learns how to articulate “who we are” as part of belonging to the community.
  6. The adult learns to express the characteristics of his or hear heart in a deepening personal style (p. 31).

 

The adult accomplishes these tasks as his or her family and community accomplishes the following tasks respectively:

  1. The family and community provides opportunities for the adult to participate in group life.
  2. The family and community affirms that the adult will make it through difficult times.
  3. The family and community provides positive environment where peers can bond.
  4. The family and community teaches adults that their behaviors impact others and impact history.
  5. The family and community provides opportunities to be involved in important community tasks.
  6. The family and community holds the adult accountable while still accepting and affirming the aspects of his or her true self (p. 31).

 

As you can see, adulthood is the time when we learn how to relate well to others. Adulthood is when we learn how to care for others as well as ourselves. As infants, we were dependent. As children, we learn independence. As adults, we learn interdependence. 

 

As a community or a family, we must learn to provide the opportunities for the adult to practice interdependence. I think this is a struggle for most North American communities because we prize independence so much. We think we are promoting maturity, when actually we are locking people into immaturity.

 

Stuck in Adulthood

If we do not learn these lessons of maturity, there are some pretty significant dysfunctions that develop in our lives. If we cannot accomplish the task of caring for others along with self, we remain self-centered. Other people will always be dissatisfied with us, they will be frustrated with us. Our relationships will never deepen. We’ll never be able to have truly mutually deep relationships. What an impact not learning these lessons will have in marriage. Do you think perhaps this is the reason the divorce rate is so high these days?

 

If we never learn to hang on to stability and return to joy despite what we face, we’ll learn instead to conform to peer pressures. We’ll rely on negative and destructive group activities. Is it any wonder that gangs become popular for young adults. They aren’t learning to have personal stability or to find stability from God, so they get involved in groups that seem to provide some kind of stability and identity. Of course, the other potential problem is not bonding with any group and becoming a loner, isolating, having a huge sense of self-importance. We’ll think we can handle everything on our own and cause damage in all our relationships.

 

If we cannot learn to take personal responsibility for our own actions and how our actions impact others, we can become controlling, manipulative, blaming, harmful. We crash through life without concern for who is in our path. This includes damage inflicted on spouses and even children, not to mention co-workers, neighbors, fellow church members. All we can think about is ourselves and what we aren’t getting. We will never stop to think what others are facing and how our actions impact them. We only think about how they impact us and we become users and manipulators.

 

If we cannot learn to contribute to the community, we become a drain on the community. There doesn’t seem to be much in between ground here. We are either uplifting or we are down-dragging. We are either adding life to our family and community or we are sucking life out of it.

 

Finally, if we cannot learn to express who we are and the God-given characteristics of our heart, we’ll never have the self-confidence to live the way God has designed us. Instead, we’ll constantly be trying to fill roles that others have developed for us. We’ll spin our wheels trying to prove ourselves to the world, to our peers, to the “judges” of our community. We will constantly hang on the approval of others and even become willing to sell out on our values to get it (p. 31).

 

If you are like me, you may have thought just getting to adulthood is good enough, learning the childhood lessons ought to be fine. However, if we wish to have personal fulfillment and be beneficial to our families and communities (neighborhood, church, work) we need to keep working on maturing.

 

The Spiritual Application For Individuals

We’re not done growing. We’ve learned what we need as Christians. We’ve learned how to express our needs. We’ve learned how we fit in the big picture of Christianity, our congregation, our community. We’ve even learned to take care of ourselves. But God didn’t save us through Jesus so we could take care of ourselves. God saved us so we could be a blessing to others. God saved us so we can learn to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). 

 

This is where our faith really gets tested. During infancy and childhood, we may think there aren’t any problems out there in the Christian world. We may develop idealistic notions that as long as we do what is right, everything will just work out. But that is not how it works. Satan attacks. Others falter. Personalities clash. Immaturity causes dysfunction. We continue to struggle with issues we think should have been overcome early on. We can become disillusioned with Christ and His church and even our own growth. We need to learn that daily problems doesn’t mean something is wrong. It just means we are growing. We are in a process. Things will work out. That is the promise God is explaining in Romans 8:28-30. We need to learn confidence in God that He is working on our behalf. That will help us have stability and continued growth.

 

We need to learn to overcome isolation. That is going to mean sharing our secrets with other Christians (James 5:16). That’s going to mean spending time with our brethren even when the church hasn’t planned something. Did you notice that the very first Christians didn’t just meet in congregational assemblies, they also met from house to house (Acts 2:46). That wasn’t a church planned activity. Those were individual Christians opening their homes and developing relationships instead of isolating on their own.

 

We have to learn to contribute to the church community. This is so much more than learning to lead a public prayer or teach a Bible class. Look at the example of Tabitha in Acts 9:36-43. Here was a woman, probably single, perhaps a widow. Did she wait for the church to ask her to participate in some congregationally planned service activity? No. She saw a need and she filled it. She made garments for those in need. She didn’t do everything, but she did what she could. She didn’t serve everyone, but she served who she could. She didn’t wait to be asked. She just served. She contributed. What I can’t help but notice is that James, an apostle, was killed in Acts 12. The disciples mourned and buried him. Stephen, an evangelist and a deacon (I believe), was killed in Acts 7. The disciples mourned and buried him. Tabitha, who held no office and wasn’t seemingly a “major player” in the church, dies and the disciples call in Peter and say, “Something has to be done about this.” The others were laid to rest and Tabitha was brought back to keep on serving. Perhaps this tells us how important this part of our maturity really is.

 

Don’t give up. Keep on growing spiritually.

 

The Spiritual Application for Congregations

We might think if Christians grow through infancy and then make it through spiritual childhood, they’re good. We can leave them on their own to progress. Not so. Certainly, as adults, they are responsible for their maturity. However, as a church we need to help them mature. We need to provide the opportunities they need to progress in spiritual adulthood, or they’ll get locked into spiritual adolescence. Sadly, I think numerous churches suffer because they are filled with a lot of Christians who never get passed spiritual puberty. They’re locked in the awkward stage of gaining independence but not knowing how to deal with interpersonal relationships. They never learn how to be a productive part of the church family. They can answer the doctrinal questions right. They can challenge error. They can even sometimes think for themselves and see where we need to make changes. However, they don’t know how to express that. They don’t understand how their inappropriate expressions destroy relationships. We need to help with that.

 

What are we doing for the growing Christians to be part of the group life? Don’t just think in terms of the assemblies. Sadly, as I pointed out in the last stage, we often do great and having training classes on how to lead public prayers and give talks. But what about being really involved in the community of the congregation. What are we doing to help these growing Christians be a contributing factor in the lives of the other saints around them? Are we teaching them how to encourage others? What about hospital visits? Visiting the shut-ins? What about teaching them to contribute to the secular community? Sadly, most churches today are taking the easy road. Instead of teaching the growing Christians to provide contribution to the world around them, they just take up a weekly collection and then let the church contribute to the secular community. I don’t believe that is the church’s job. The church needs to teach growing Christians how to contribute to the society around them.

 

What are we doing to encourage growing Christians to develop community with other growing Christians? Do we do much more than our assemblies? The question is not of churches providing social time for the members. The point is for more mature Christians to take less mature Christians under their wings and bring them into relationships with others. The problem is all too often we don’t have the more mature Christians. We just have a bunch of adolescent Christians clamoring for someone else to do something and provide something for them. We don’t have to get involved in unscriptural activities for the local church in order to accomplish this. We simply have to step outside our “we’ve never done anything like that” box and creatively consider scriptural options to get growing Christians together.

 

Finally, what are we doing to help growing Christians really see how their unique gifts can benefit the congregation and benefit the kingdom? Too often we simply preach guilt building lessons that make people feel bad because they are doing some thing or the other. What if instead we spent that time to find what people are gifted for and encourage them in those areas? What if instead of sweeping with broad brushes and expecting everyone to be Stepford Christians, we learn to accept folks as individuals with quirks and struggles, but with gifts and talents and learn to help them capitalize on their strengths instead of feeling guilty for their weaknesses?

 

Do you think we and our brethren would grow if we took this approach? Do you think churches would grow if they took this approach?

 

Discussion

 

Tell me what you think. Does this sound a like a legitimate step of maturity? How do you think we can unstick ourselves if we are stuck in this level? Do we need to be concerned about it at all?

I Don’t Have to Be God Today

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looking to GodThe other day I was having some real struggles. I was obsessing about some conversations that I had already had and some I needed to have. In my mind, I played the video over and again of the conversations. For those that I had already finished, I replayed the video with me saying different things trying to figure out if events would have gone differently if I had said something different. For the conversations I hadn’t yet had, I was playing the tape trying to figure out how to say the exact right thing so I could fix everything in those people, our relationships, and our congregation.

 

Obsessing over these things was messing up my night, interfering with my sleep. It was messing up my day, distracting me from the real work at hand. I knew I needed to stop the obsession. It wasn’t doing any good. It wasn’t living in reality. It wasn’t helping. In fact, it was hindering.

 

Then it hit me. I knew what my problem was. In my own little way, I was trying to take care of God’s job. It’s God’s job to fix things. Not mine. My job is simply to do the next right thing. For the conversations that were already completed, the right thing was to have those conversations. I had them. I had done my job. Now it is God’s job to work in my heart and in the hearts of the others to work out His glory. It isn’t my job to try to go back and make those conversations awesome so that I get the outcome I want. For the conversations yet to come, the right thing was to have those conversations. The right thing was to state my concerns but do so gently without being judgmental. The right thing was to listen attentively and show respect. I think I did all those things. It is God’s job to work in my heart and the heart of those I spoke with to prompt us to consider our own lives and whether we are glorifying Him. 

 

What really hit me was that I’m not God. I can’t foresee the future. I can’t change the past. I’m not perfect. My words won’t be perfect. I won’t ever say the just right thing that makes everything work out just the right way all the time. When I’m obsessing over my conversations as if I can really make them perfect, I’m trying to be God. I don’t have to do that today. I can let Him do His job and I’ll just work on mine.

 

It reminds me of another incident a few weeks ago. I was invited to be part of a writing project, to which I whole-heartedly agreed. When the whole project was said and done, the editor and I had a disagreement about the use of two particular words. I stated my concerns and reasons why I thought the editor was making a mistake. But in the end, he was the editor. The project went to press his way, not mine. I was so upset. I called a friend to vent my frustration. He listened politely. He let me have my feelings, validating that I was allowed to feel that way. But then he encouraged me. He essentially said, “You know, Edwin, if God wants to use that project to help people, He can do it without having to use your words. You’ve done your job, trust Him to do His.”

 

WOW! What a concept. Let God do His job. I’m not God. I don’t have to do His job.

 

You know what. As I learn this lesson, I’m gaining some real freedom and serenity. There’s a lot of stress that comes with trying to do God’s job, stress I didn’t even realize I was carrying. Apparently, I’ve been trying to do God’s job a lot. Frankly, it is just too much for me. 

 

So, today, I don’t have to be God. I’ll let Him do His job and I can rest easy, because I know He does a fine job without me and doesn’t need my council or advice.

Growing Up: Part 1 (The Infant Stage)

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I recently read a very interesting book that provided an intriguing look at growing up, maturing (wait for it…wait for it… yes, here it is, an associate link: The Life Model: Living from the heart Jesus gave you). Their maturity progress is a mix of how we must grow just to get along in life, but also how we must grow in Jesus to be a maturing disciple. Over the next five Mondays, I want to simply share their five stages of maturity with you. I hope this will spark some great discussion about growing up and growing up in the Lord.

The biological ages provided are not saying once a person reaches that biological point they move on to the next maturity level. Rather, they simply point out the earliest point at which a person can move to the next maturity level. The fact is, someone may be 36 and still in the infant stage of maturity.

The stages are:

  1. Infant (0-3)
  2. Child (4-12)
  3. Adult (13-birth of first child)
  4. Parent (birth of first child-youngest child becomes an adult)
  5. Elder (beginning when youngest child becomes an adult)

The Infant Stage (0-3)

The baby stage. In fact, consider what being a baby is like and you see what this level of maturity is like. A baby cannot articulate her needs. A baby can simply scream when he needs or wants something. The parents must guess at his needs. Granted, good parents learn to guess well. They respond to the baby’s needs, nurturing it, feeding it, diapering it, holding it, comforting it.

This is exactly what an infant needs. She needs someone to provide this care-giving love. But more than that, she needs someone to provide these needs while seeing her as God sees her. That is, she needs to see joy on the faces of those who are caring for her. If he sees anger, hurt, fear, that is what he will learn to look for as he grows up. He’ll have a hard time maintaining a center of joy. He’ll have a hard time walking in and bearing the fruit of the Spirit, which is joy (Galatians 5:22).

The infant “needs to be the ‘sparkle in someone’s eye’ and to be with people that are ‘glad to be with them’ so that they live in joy and learn that joy is one’s normal state” (p. 20).

Progressing to the Next Level

Before progressing to the next level of maturity, the infant must accomplish 5 maturity tasks.

  1. Live in joy, expanding the capacity for joy and learn that joy is the normal state.
  2. Develop trust.
  3. Learn how to receive.
  4. Begin to organize self into a person through relationships.
  5. Learn how to return to joy from every unpleasant emotion.

These steps are accomplished as the family and community accomplishes the following 5 tasks respectively.

  1. Parents delight in the infant’s wonderful and unique existence.
  2. Parents build strong, loving, bonds with the infant–bonds of unconditional love.
  3. Give care that matches the infants needs, without the infant asking.
  4. Discover the true characteristics of the infant’s unique identity, through attention to the child’s behavior and character
  5. Provide enough safety and companionship during difficulties, so the infant can return to joy from any other emotion (p. 29).

Getting Stuck as a Baby

Have you ever seen someone you might call a big baby? That may be a very accurate description. The problem may really be that they never did progress beyond the infant stage of maturity.

If an infant is not provided the unconditional love, care, and nurturing, he will be wounded. He will get stuck in the infant stage. If he learns that he can’t trust others, he’ll always live in fear and distrust, wanting someone to take care of him but certain no one ever will. Do you think that might hinder his ability to rely on God?

If the parents and/or community around the child has not reached the parental stage of maturity, the child is going to be in trouble. The parents can’t give what they don’t have. If the parents are stuck in the infant stage or even the child stage, they will be seeking their own needs themselves and leaving the infant child to fend for herself. The parent, seeking his or her own needs, may “parentify” the infant, seeking their own happiness and comfort through the child. The roles become reversed and neither is fulfilled. It is the parents that are to provide the love and nurture to the child, not the other way around. Sadly, too many of us have kids because we are needy, not because we are prepared to care for a child.

Adult Infants

“‘Adult infants’ who have not received in these important areas as babies, will always be needy as adults. They will not be able to take care of themselves emotionally nor will they be able to appropriately receive important things from others. Adult infants will not ask for what they need because they believe if others really cared for them, they would figure out what they needed. Adult infants cannot handle criticism even if it is valid and constructive, because they see any negative feedback as a personal attack. They are often possessive of relationships, territory, power and possessions. Unfortunately for all involved, they also use fear bonding to ensure others will stay bonded to them [Fear bonding is getting others to stay in a relationship by using negative pressures, making them fear something negative if they act as themselves or if they leave the relationship-ELC]. And while ‘high functioning’ adult infants can appear responsible in many areas, like handling personal finances, and being punctual and reliable, emotionally they are severely crippled making it difficult for them to have successful and enduring relationships” (pp. 20-21).

The Spiritual Application

Do you think new converts might be in a similar stage as a newborn infant? They are extremely needy, but they don’t even yet know how to express their needs. They need to be in a family with mature Christians who can anticipate their needs and provide them without them even asking. They need spiritual parents who will care for them, nurturing them, teaching them they can trust the brethren and they can trust God. I can’t begin to suggest for how many years this stage is normal.

However, I can suggest that perhaps more Christians need more mature brethren to demonstrate that the newborn in the faith are the sparkle of our eyes, that we are overjoyed to have them in our presence. What might smiles, hugs, and listening ears accomplish for these new Christians? New Christians need more mature Christians who build strong bonds of unconditional love (emphasize unconditional love–not love until they have a relapse into their favorite pre-baptism sin). Infants in Christ need more mature Christians who discover the babe’s unique identity and strengths. These things might go a longer way to producing spiritual maturity than simply dropping them in a New Converts class and attempting to fill their heads with all the right answers to all the right questions. Babes in Christ need relationships. They will develop their relationship with God as they develop their relationship with other Christians.

Of course, we can’t give what we don’t have. If the congregation has no one at a parent or elder level maturity, there is going to be a problem. The church will then be filled only with people seeking others to care for them or who can only take care of themselves. That is a hurting place to be.

Ephesians 4:13 says we need to develop to mature manhood. If we are stuck in the infant stage, we need to do some work. We need to find some “parents” who can help us get unstuck and move past our wounds and hurts. Be honest with yourself. If you see yourself in that “adult infant” paragraph, seek some mature person out to help you grow.

I hope we can start a discussion here. How do we get beyond infanthood if we are stuck there?