Life is full of waiting to grow up. Infants can’t wait to walk. Preschoolers can’t wait for big kid school. Then waits are about daddy-daughter dances, drivers’ licenses, and proms. The list is endless. Growing up is hard to do. It takes patience (usually in short supply) and some sort of goal of what we want to grow into. When I was in my 30’s with a family, a vocation, and a home, I still joked about not knowing what to be when I grew up. For some reason, who we are at any point in life is often not enough. Growing can be, but shouldn’t be, hard to do. What we miss at each stage of life is the realization that we will always be growing but at a different pace than others around me.
Growing is keeping up with the life that is in us. It is part of the journey of life which never stops but keeps moving forward toward the future. Is there ever a moment in one’s life when they can honestly say, “I am finally there! I am all grown up?” If someone thinks that is true, they will quickly find that they misread the tea leaves. Think about it. If a plant stops growing it dies. So it is with every life. Anything that stops growing is not alive any longer. Without the nourishment and support necessary to continue growing anyone will shrivel into emptiness and be unable to have anything worth sharing, no matter what diploma, title, or trophies could be placed on shelves. It is the same with our lives of faith. It is all about growing up.
Faith is more than a series of answers or a structure based on beliefs. Unlike many of our life goals, we don’t have to wait for it as we do for earthly goals. Faith is not something that comes after we are grown up, but a fully operational gift that we grow into. Faith is the life of God in us. Like sap running throughout a tree or blood flowing throughout vessels, faith is the gift of life itself. Faith empowers our living and takes us wherever God leads, just as leaves and fruit of a vine exist only because of the life that makes them the gifts they become. Growing as people of faith is simply reaching up to a loving God who has reached down to touch us with life and filled us with the gifts necessary to grow into who and what he has made us to be.
Every day is a new miracle of life; a fresh start to flex our angel wings and grow with the gift of faith God has planted in us. He doesn’t care if we are tall or short, male or female, a priest or a dump truck driver, or even what country we are from. He made us who we are, loves us, and fills us with a gift that we daily are blessed to grow into.