What is grown up?
I have weeks or months where I can surrender myself to what needs to be done at the cost of what I want to do. The reality of life comes in with a thunderous roar and demands surrender. The weight of the implications of simple choices crushes down like a whale on an ant. And yet, the guerilla inside me refuses to completely let go. To lose oneself to the ideal of maturity feels an empty endeavor. I long to explore; I pine for new experiences in sights, location, personalities, and sensations. So periodically I will break away from my best interest and indulge. Such a battle it is that rages inside between the elation of fullfilled whim and desire and the longing for stability and maturity. The pursuit of ‘best interest’ and the conscience of knowing what is right fights mightily against youthful exuberance and willy-nilly thinking. Perhaps growth is an accurate satisfying of both, knowing that strict rigidity produces painful legalism, whereas unbounded indulgence truly never satifies anything.
But to pursue long-term good requires faith and patience. Faith that your desires will be fullfilled in a more meaningful way via the long route, and patience to wait for their fullfillment. Testimony of those who have gone before affirms that faith and patience are not ill-rewarded.
But to pursue long-term good requires faith and patience. Indulgence reqiures nothing. Maturity requires sacrifice your immediate desires; your present. Immediate satisfaction requires a sacrifice of much more: it requires you to sacrifice your future.
addendum:
Hebrews 12:1 – “.. let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”