Daily Meditation: "Sacred Maturity"
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
SCRIPTURE
"Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." - Romans 12:2
REFLECTION
When my sweet friend Livingston Taylor was with us a number of years ago, I introduced him to the kind of picks I use on my fingers and thumb when I play guitar. He used a different kind at that time and was interested in what I was using. He ended up switching to them, really likes them and uses them to this very day. Liv was in his mid-sixties when he was here, and he was open to learning something new, trying something different, and maturing in his craft.
Each of us changes and matures (hopefully) throughout an entire lifetime. We don’t just mature through our adolescence and twenties. We mature in our fifties and our eighties, too. Why? Because there’s always something more to learn, more ways in which to grow and become more full, complete, and whole. Can an old dog indeed learn new tricks? I sure hope so. Liv sure thinks so!
It becomes all the more difficult, though, when the culture around us seeks to drag us down to a lower level. We see it everywhere: in our entertainment, our sports, our news media, all over social media...we too easily sink to our lowest common denominators and it is easy to get sucked in. How can we grow when we’re so distracted by all of it? It runs the risk of becoming the norm. Yet Paul reminds us that God brings out the best in us. Being compassionate, forgiving, empathetic, justice-centered, and selfless develops maturity in us all and brings out the best in each of us, no matter where we are along life’s journey.
Though we have to live in our culture, we can still not be dragged down by it. We can continue to evolve and see the ways in which we can be counter-cultural and embrace the ongoing journey of maturing as a creation of God rather than sinking to the level of so much of what is around us.
Let’s dare to change our fingerpicks!
PRAYER
Loving Creator, always remind us whose we are and that in relationship with you we can be something better than what is around us and set a better example.
Amen.
Peace,
Shawn