Adulting:: Marks of Maturity

When I was a boy I couldn't WAIT to get older. 

It felt like adults got to do all the great stuff that I wanted to do. 

Grownups didn't seem to have limits on their candy intake, they got to watch whatever TV shows they wanted, they could drive cars and they made up their own bedtimes. 

While being an adult has it's benefits, the processing of becoming an adult is exhausting. There's a lot of increased responsibility to go along with all of that increased freedom. 

Last year a couple of friends and I came up with the idea of having a night completely themed around the dreams of being an adult we had as kids.
Buy a birthday cake at the grocery store and eat it all
Drink too much soda
Play video games all night 
Watch a rated R movie. 

I think one of the reasons we've never done it is because it sounds kinda terrible as an adult. I would definitely get sick from too much cake and soda and staying up all night sounds like punishment. Tom Hanks in "Big" is the only way to actually enjoy the kinds of adult experiences you dreamed of as a kid. You have to be transported into an adult's body with your kid brain. 

This is because we change and grow over time. We don't still hold the same beliefs we used to hold. While age and maturity don't always walk in step, there is a process of maturity that comes with age.

What we're hoping to explore this week and for the 3 weeks after that is the process of Christian maturity. What does it look like to become more mature? How do we keep growing, even when our bodies stop? How is Jesus inviting us to deeper levels of maturity that bring God's plan and purpose for living to bear?