Day 2885 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 1:19 NIV

I am convinced that growing up is without a doubt the most detrimental and problematic thing to experience in life. It causes us to feel as though we’ve become intelligent, wise, learned, but only because we’ve had more time to grow accustomed to the teachings of the world by which worldly wisdom is weighed. Growing up only fosters this mindset in which we find ourselves having arrived at the goal without actually accomplishing anything other than getting older.

Oddly enough, as little kids, all we want is to be older. We want to be bigger. We want to be stronger, to be taken more seriously, to be given more opportunities and freedoms and responsibilities. We look to these giants in our lives and wish for nothing but to be just like them because they seem to have a more wide-open way of life not hindered by size or age or anything else. But then the most unfortunate thing happens; we grow up.

We get older. We get wiser. We learn things and that's where the problems begin. You see, the problem with getting older and growing up is that we know we do it. We realize it taking place. And as it's something that we've always wished for, we grasp every moment that affords us evidence of our maturing in life. We look back and see all the childishness that we’ve left behind and feel as though we’re so much better off now that we’re bigger, stronger, smarter, more respected and noticed.

But, somewhere along the way, we cross a most lamentable line that leads us along this path toward our ultimate conclusion that we're wise simply because we're adults.

Yesterday I shared a truly alarming presentation that I had seen a video of being shared. And the topic in this message was how saying that "the Bible says" isn't adequate for many adults. Because adults know better, don't we? We know better than to believe in what many consider fairy tales. We know better than to hope in the unknown. We know better than to simply trust in an authority we can't see or understand. We know better than to just trust the legitimacy of Scripture, because we're plenty wise on our own.

We’re adults now, and as adults, we can’t lower ourselves to believing in the foolishness and folly of what the world sees as childish. Oh, how wrong we’ve gotten it all!

What's truly saddening is that that kind of mindset isn't at all uncommon. If anything, in this world that constantly plants these seeds of selfishness and doubt and vain authority in our minds, that mindset is only becoming more and more normalized. And as it becomes more normalized, the foundational aspects of the Gospel quickly find themselves increasingly doubted as they simply don't coincide with all of this 'knowledge' that we adults have determined and derived.

But, in all actuality, that right there is what poses the biggest problem when it comes to faith. Faith stands as a reminder that we are not in fact the ones who dictate much of anything. In fact, faith requires us to surrender all of our self-perceived wisdom as it teaches us that there is far more to be seen, to be heard, to be known than what we've already understood.

And that constant confrontation with our conceited complacency spells a very impressive stumbling block over which all of us have struggled to traverse. As we begin down this road of faith built upon the truths of Scripture and the Gospel conveyed within, we find ourselves as this crossroads of clinging to what fuels our vanity and the obvious necessity of letting it go. And it's not a one and done issue. That crossroads rears its head many times along this journey into sanctification.

In order to undergo the rebirth granted us through the cross of Christ, we must be willing to literally start over. That is in fact what rebirth means. Becoming children once more. Losing our confidence in ourselves in exchange for reliance upon a Savior. Trading away our pride in exchange for persistence and perseverance necessitated by the ongoing understanding that we must unlearn all we've known in order to learn something as vastly different as the life that Christ now calls us to live.

And it's in that relinquishing of our old, comfortable normal that we find the difficulty posed in our getting what we wanted as little kids. We wanted to grow up and be taken seriously, but in order to achieve that goal, we ourselves had to become serious. And, sadly, we learned seriousness based only on what the world is readily willing to accept and acknowledge. And well, the truth of the Gospel ain't at all high on that list!

So, all of the sudden, we find ourselves in these adult shoes that render us not as free and unlimited as we'd assumed. Rather, the mindset of adulthood furnishes this inability to see beyond what our eyes can see. It limits our perspective to what we feel is possible. Growing up and getting older, and learning from the world how to do so effectively sadly all but eliminates our child-like ability to dream, to trust, to hope.

Guess it's all just this really impressive example of being careful what you ask for.

The adult mindset taught by the world around us teaches us to stop believing. It hinders our ability to trust as we find ourselves jaded by so many who’ve proven untrustworthy. It prevents our imaginations from imagining the impossible as we're told that life does have limits, at least limits we’re expected to stay within, and therefore everything we do and say and think must be contained within what humanity has deemed to be possible, reasonable, logical.

And along the way, all this 'wisdom' all but destroys the ability for faith to be what it's meant to be. All because we know better.

But do we? That's honestly something that each of us need to consider. Do we know everything we think we know? Have we truly attained wisdom in its fullness just because the year of our birth has grown more distant? Have we achieved full maturity just because we have jobs and bills and wear bigger clothes?

Or, could it be that we've allowed the world to convince us to quench the child inside that still yearns to reach for the stars? Could it be that our self-perceived knowledge isn't actually affording us unlimited opportunities, but that it's limiting our ability to trust in something truly unlimited? Might it be that growing up only convinces us that we've arrived at the destination, and therefore sadly prevented us from striving onward into the uncharted territory marked by footprints in the sand?

My point is that just because we think we're as smart as we can be simply because we've learned the expected levels of intelligence determined by the world around us, that does not mean we need to stop dreaming, stop believing, stop holding to this hope that there is more out there than what we can know.

Truth be told, wisdom is only found in realizing you've not found it.

We can't keep learning if we feel as though we know enough to suffice for the rest of our time. We can't grow if we feel that we've reached the finish line of life. As kids, we saw being adults as the goal for which to aim. Are we truly willing to stop just because we've arrived at a certain age? Seems a kind of sad ending to what was once an unlimited world of possibilities doesn't it?

But what's ultimately heartbreaking is that once our age reaches a certain number, the world tells us to let go of the kids we once were. We lose that innocence, that wonder, that blind faith placed in those who we just know we can trust. And I'm sure you can see the detriment that poses in our walk of faith. If we don't hope, don't trust, don't believe in the unknowns and impossibilities, then how can we follow a Savior we can't see to a place we've never been along a road we've never traveled?

Truth be told, we can't. And as we look around at all the reasons and excuses and religions being put into place and practice, we realize that much of humanity is trying to force faith to fit into what seems rational. We keep trying to water it down into something our minds can contain, because again, that's where our 'wisdom' is. And we simply can't abide by something that tells us we've not reached the goal when we've lived so long thinking we have.

That's the struggle all of us 'adults' have when it comes to faith. God's Word destroys our 'wisdom' by teaching us that we have none without Him as He alone is the author of wisdom. And when our self-perceived intelligence is leveled by the truth found in the Word of God, we're left with but two options: Humility or resentment. And unfortunately, as is growing increasingly evident, humanity opts for the latter. All because, again, we're adults who remain convinced we know something.

The fact that the Gospel contends against our intelligence leads to incredible frustration that again brings us to that choice between humility and resentment. We find ourselves frustrated at being so quickly and easily proven insufficient, and that sudden humbling we refuse to accept we needed only adds fuel to all this thinking that we must stop believing all because we might be proven wrong. And there's simply nothing more detrimental to our pride than that!

Sadly, we're all taught from a young age that maturity happens once we reach a certain point in life. We're taught that wisdom is something to be achieved as we age, and that at a certain point, we'll have finished that work and arrived at our goal. But, all that really does is cause us to stop trying. To stop trusting. To stop hoping and believing and wondering and venturing into what everyone else says is foolish and silly.

Because we still crave to be taken seriously and not seen as foolish little children by those we wish to placate and please.

Friends, my point is that Christ doesn't call us to have a childlike faith just because it sounds interesting. He calls us to have a childlike faith because without the wonder and trust and reliance of a child, we'll simply never know faith. Faith demands all of the above, and sadly, all of the above are largely lost among adults who've accepted them to be expendable.

If we truly wish to learn, we must keep learning. If we desire wisdom, we must realize that we'll never find it nor perfect it on our own in this place doing it our way. If we really wish to follow Christ to a promise we can't see or possibly begin to imagine, we better brace ourselves for having our 'wisdom', our 'intelligence', our 'maturity' leveled to the ground because growing in faith is simply impossible if we think we've already grown enough and know enough to live decent lives on our own.

Faith doesn't have to be aggravating, frustrating, infuriating. It only seems as such because we still cling to this lie that tells us things like hope and belief are below adults. In truth, faith isn't as hard as we make it out to be. It's really only difficult because we're trying to retain our accolades and achievements while grappling with this message that tells us to let them go and do something new.

In the end, it's all simply a matter of how we receive this message we've been given. Do we respond to it like the adults we think ourselves to be who are too big for childishness. Or do we learn to appreciate it like the children we still wish we were? It only works one of those ways, and it's not the one that allows for us to continue on thinking we know everything we need to know.

It's time for us to allow ourselves to be destroyed, torn apart, proven wrong. Not because it's fun or because it feeds into this egotistical mindset we've learned to carry. But because we can't be made new if we don't believe that such a thing is possible. We may think ourselves wise because we've learned how to live successfully according to the standards and expectations of this world. But if we cling so tightly to that illusion of wisdom, then all we'll ever know is what we've already learned.

And if all we ever know is what we've learned from the world, then we will never know faith or hope because such things aren't possible to a world that assumes we know everything there is to know without the One who authored and created all there is.

We can either find ourselves frustrated by the authority of Scripture confronting our self-perceived wisdom, or we can humbly realize that thinking we know everything only prevents us from learning what we still need to know. Friends, it’s gonna hurt. Stop seeking to avoid that. He will destroy our wisdom, frustrate our sense of intelligence, and leave us reeling from a sudden fall back into the open-mindedness of a child. Embrace it, because as wonderful as we thought growing up would be, I think we can all agree it only causes more problems than we ever would have hoped for.

It can be simple, easy, uncomplicated. But only if we agree to get our ‘wisdom’ out of the way and allow Him to lead us further than we think we need to go.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold