Never Too Old

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

1 Corinthians 13:11 (NLT)

I recently celebrated one of those decade milestone birthdays. Truthfully, I’d been dreading the day most of the previous three hundred sixty five days. How could I possibly be that old already? I resist growing older, especially when mentally, I still feel young.

One of the best parts about being a grandparent is that I get to participate in the activities of my grandchildren, including pretend play, being silly, and getting messy.

It’s acceptable to be childlike as adult women, without being childish. In fact, I’d say that is how our heavenly Father enjoys us most. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that we continue to need a Father, but when we do, we experience mutual delight.

How can we as adult women still depend on our heavenly Father with childlike faith, but put away our childish things? What are our childish things?  Impatience? Lack of self-control? Discontent? Selfishness?

How do we let God parent us as adults? We come to Him with our requests. We can always call Him Daddy. We share our deepest feelings with Him. We let Him know our desires. We don’t demand that He fix things or change our circumstances. Invite Him in. He wants to come along side us in our pain and discouragement. He also wants to rejoice with us in our victories!

He longs for us to be secure in Him. Let Him take care of our enemies. Let Him get us through the danger. Let Him speak on our behalf.

Allow God to parent you, and you will keep maturing throughout adulthood.

It’s possible with God to grow emotionally to overcome the childish things of our pasts.

As we let God parent us as the perfect Father that He is, we will gradually leave our childishness behind.

Abba Father, You are a good Father to us no matter how old we are. Free us from childish things.

Karen Sims