1 Corinthians 13:11 – “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Let us look at the life and process of a child growing up and connect it with how God works with us too.
When we are baby Christians, like little physical babies, God hold us, feeds us, burps us, changes us and never sets us down unless we are asleep for good dreams and then if we have a bad dream, He quickly picks us up again.
When we are toddlers, God still carries us but occasionally He lets us walk beside Him. If we fall when walking next to Him, it does not mean He was not there. Yes, He could have prevented it by carrying us the whole way, but if we do not learn how to walk and how to watch out for obstacles, we will never get to a place where we can help others. Also, in the toddler years we are starting to learn how to feed ourselves and half the time God is still feeding us that mashed up food.
When we get a little older, we no longer need to be fed, (unless we are sick) but we can actively feed ourselves. Does that mean that God is not providing because he is not holding us anymore or not feeding us anymore? Nope! He is still providing, He is still cooking at this point and giving us everything we need. We are just the ones who are choosing to eat it. If you don’t want to eat it, that is your choice. Kind of of, Mom used to tell us if we did not eat it, it would be waiting for us at the next meal. By then it was cold and not very good. So, you learned to eat it when it was provided.
As we get to being teenagers or in my case, eight, you start to learn how to cook for yourself. It gets to the point of “Mom what is for dinner?” and she says, “It is in the fridge honey.” So, you go and cook it. Does that mean Dad is not providing anymore? No. Dad still goes to work, and he or Mom buys the food and then you are just the one to cook it. So when we are older and we are looking to feed our souls, we ask God, “what is for dinner?” and He says, “It is in my Word.” We are to go to it and learn how to saturate, meditate, and feast on God’s Word for ourselves.
Most of us don’t even like to be at this stage in our Christian walk. We want to have the food prepared and for God to serve it up on nice plates and have it all ready for us, and maybe even feed us every once in a while, like a servant. No! He wants to get us to the place that we are adult children of God who not only can feed themselves and cook, but who can plan and deliver a meal for others. We are supposed to get to the place where we are able to feed others, prepare it and cook it for others, and even plan a whole menu. That is something Mom did with us girls. She designated days for us to cook supper so that we would get in the practice of being able to plan and cook while we were at work and that there would be food ready when everyone got home to eat.
God wants us to be able to be there. Does that mean that He stopped providing? No! He still sends the food. He still provides it. Yes sometimes, we have to go get it (shopping), but that does not mean that He has stopped. You see at each different stage in our Christian walk God lets us do more. He allows us to become more like Him in the preparation and caring of others. Some people might feel like God gets more distant every time, but what it is, is that we are becoming transformed into the image of Christ, and we are spending more time with Him. We are learning to be like Him. He is allowing us to take part in the preparation of others’ meals and allowing us to bless and care for others.
So when God is bringing us into the next stage of life, we ought to accept our new role and learn it well, so we can be more like Him, a servant. May we be able to say as Paul did, that we have put away childish things and have become adult Christians fit and ready to feed others with the food God provides in His Word.