Walking With Christ

Psalm 92:14  They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green,(ESV)

Mature growth can be difficult to see.

A young plant may add a single leaf, and the change is obvious.  A mature tree can grow across its roots, trunk, branches, and canopy, yet look almost the same as it did the day before.  The growth is still happening.  It’s simply spread across something much larger.

The same can be true in our lives.

As we grow older, our progress may no longer be measured by dramatic first steps or easily recognized milestones.  Growth may appear in quieter ways:  a little more patience, a better response, a corrected assumption, or the willingness to listen where we once would have spoken.

Maturity doesn’t mean we’ve reached the end of what can be learned.

The oldest tree still responds to the rain, reaches toward the light, and adjusts to the changing seasons.  Its size doesn’t make it independent of the things that sustain it.  Its age doesn’t prevent it from producing new growth.

Neither should ours.

There will always be a temptation to believe that experience has settled every question and confirmed every conclusion.  Sometimes, experience does show us that we understood something correctly.  Other times, it reveals how much more there was to understand.

Both are valuable lessons.

As long as we are living, there remains something God can teach us.  The question isn’t whether we’re still learning, but whether we’re willing to recognize what the lesson is.

Don’t mistake familiarity for completion, or maturity for arrival.

The growth may no longer be easy to measure from one day to the next, but that doesn’t make it insignificant.  A mature life can still deepen its roots, strengthen its branches, and reach into places it couldn’t reach before.

There’s always room for new growth, even in something that’s been growing for many years.