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 Carolyn Slaughter |
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How Did I Get Here? You know all of us want to be big. In some way we want to be big but how many of us really grow up? Do you remember the movie "Big?" One of my very favorite movies. Tom Hanks plays the part of a little guy that was just yearning to be big, and much to his surprise, he woke up and his wish had been granted. There he was, a ten year old trapped in an adult body. Let’s see how that worked. |
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Most of
us feel like kids in adult skin. Did you ever have those times like I do where you kind of
blank out, you kind of forget where you are. You start feeling the pressure of the test
upcoming or a paper you’ve forgotten to write and all of a sudden you jolt yourself
and say, "Thank God I am not in school anymore. I’m an adult." But how did
I get here? I have kids now that are in high school and college. What happened?It went so fast. I still feel like I
did when I was 15. Because of that most of us feel really unprepared for a lot of the
aspects of adult life. You know it seems like yesterday I was doing the tango around our
living room, poised on my Uncle Orville’s feet. Did all of you do that? Did you stand
on somebody’s feet and dance? But the scary thing is now, I’m leading the dance.
Wow!You know, it’s a natural
process for us to grow physically. Our body just does that. It doesn’t need any help
from us. In fact, sometimes it grows in spite of us! I can remember when I was in my
twenties and getting ready for work one day. I looked in the mirror and this thing was
coming up out of my head! It was wiry and white and I thought, ‘Oh, my first gray
hair!" I’m telling you, I got rid of it real quick. It was gone. But the problem
was that my body kept producing those gray hairs whether I wanted it to or not, whether I
told it to or not. |
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| Ephesians 4:13-15 13: until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14: so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. 15: Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, |
 Growing spiritually and
emotionally and mentally should also be a natural process for us. You know what?
We’re designed that way. If you have your Bibles with you, would you turn to the book
of Ephesians, Chapter 4, in the New Testament, one of the little guys in the back. In
verses 13 - 15, God spells out what he wants us to be like. What I’m reading is from
"The Message." "We’re all moving rhythmically and easily with
each other. Efficient and graceful in response to God’s son, fully mature adults,
fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. No prolonged infancies among
us, please! We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy
mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth, and to tell it in
love, like Christ, in everything." So is it not obvious that God wants
us to grow? He spells it out really well. But the difference between natural growth and
spiritual growth is that our spiritual growth is up to us. We can either initiate it or we
can stop it cold, right in its tracks. We are in the driver’s seat. |
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