Maturity-- "The Ability to Delay Gratification"

On our way home from Missouri, Jonathan had to find a Walmart to pick up an air filter for the truck and when I saw this quilt shop on the way,

I asked Jonathan to drop me here for the few minutes while he took care of the filter issue.

I loved the many quilts and the unique fabrics.

Quilts are so homey and give one a sense of comfort.

And such comforts are certainly to be enjoyed, but I think more and more how on this earth 

we are called to be strangers and pilgrims and not to merely seek our own comforts over discipleship to Christ.

"We are immature when we think God has put us on the planet so that we might enjoy comfort and ease."--Sproul

"Ease is a poor criterion for judging the rightness or wrongness of life choices."

"Character and discipleship require that we take not the easiest, but the most fruitful path in seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We are in a warfare and a race, not a kindergarten playground. We must choose that which pleases God over all our preferences. A million years from now (or even a mere fifty or sixty), we will have no regrets for having inconvenienced ourselves for righteousness’ sake."  [quote from http://www.thenarrowpath.com/ta_divorce.php]

"We are mature when we understand that the greatest gift we could be given is that we might be more like Him.

Comfort and ease makes us fat and temporarily happy. 

...Trials mature us, making us...fit and holy."

Sproul, in the same book I quoted from in my last post, writes that there are only two times in the whole New Testament that God's people are called to rejoice and be exceedingly glad. 

The first, in the Sermon on the Mount, where He lets us know that when we are persecuted for His sake, we can know that our reward in heaven is great.

"Indeed, at least part of that great reward is that we will be made like Him.

And the more like Him we are made, even while we are here on earth,

the more we experience heaven on this side of eternity."

"On this point, Jesus may well be pointing to one of the defining qualities of maturity--the ability to delay gratification."

"Maturity...is the fruit of seeing with the eyes of faith.

Children gasp and cheer over magic tricks precisely because they believe what their eyes see.

...God calls us to believe not what we see but what God says. 

Mature people look at what they see,

at their circumstances, and stand firm on the promises of God."

They..."look both backward and forward: 

back to God's faithfulness and deliverances in the past,

and forward to His promises yet to unfold." 

"Those who are mature experience...being hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down--but they manage to not be crushed, not be in despair, knowing God has not forsaken them."

"Children sometimes throw tantrums when we don't allow them to have their own way. 

Those who are mature, however, are patient and wise and know the good that will come from the hardships they suffer."

"When we are mature, we are able to make careful, rational comparisons between today's hardship and tomorrow's promises.

"That path to spiritual maturity, says James, is trials." James 1:1-4

The sign that we are on the path, however, is that we rejoice even in the midst of those trials."

This is not about "the will to keep a stiff upper lip" or merely "to endure, to persevere...to practice mind-over matter." 

Rather we can and should consider it a reason for joy when trials and difficulties come our way because they test our faith, and that testing produces patience...Patience results in its perfect work, making us complete, lacking nothing--in other words, mature."