1 Peter 2:2–3: Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
It is fun watching my girls grow up. Because they are 9 years apart in age, they are in very different stages of their growth. While one is talking about deodorant brands and debating who her "quarantine BFF" is the other is learning what it means to ask for a banana and making time in her busy schedule to snuggle up to her mommy.
Evie is starting to tell us (in not-so-subtle ways) that she knows more than we do. Sophie is soaking in everything we tell her and wanting to know more.
Stages of growth.
It seems to me that our Spiritual growth (yes, that is a capital "S") is at least similar. When we first put our trust in Jesus we want to know him, to know his ways. We are hungry to understand his perspective on ourselves and his world. We know how much we need him. The gospel really is "good news" to us because we have tasted how good God as to an undeserving person like us. We hold in tension that we can be simultaneously undeserving and dearly loved and honored.
But, instead of going deeper into the heart of God, we might think we are growing up in moving away from the simplicity of the gospel. We might think maturity means moving into understanding the so-called "deeper things" like the systems of end-time prophesies or whether we are an Arminians or a Calvinists. We start using obnoxiously big theological words over dinner with friends to prove our maturity to others...or even ourselves.
As we drift away from what drew us to Jesus in the first place we start to subtly think about "the gospel" as what draws us to salvation, but we ultimately leave behind. Like a 9 year old might look at a daily bottle feeding or diaper change- we grow out of "childish" things on on to more mature things.
But what if the "first" thing we knew about our God is what makes us more mature? (Let's call that "pure spiritual milk") What if our life in Jesus doesn't just begin with the gospel, but maturity is letting the truth of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection power affect us more and more each day? If what we call the gospel is the expression of God's deepest heart, then what if subtly saying "I am over that childish stuff" is merely a sign of not knowing what we do not know?
What if real life is plunging the depths of what brought us to Jesus in the first place...that what seemed like a shallow puddle of his character is, actually, a deep ocean of his heart?