Hebrews 5:11-14

I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong. (THE MESSAGE)

When my children were young they would rush to greet me after some absence and be swept up into my arms. As grown-ups they don’t do that any more. It is not as if they no longer care about me, it is just that they express that care differently now.

We may sometimes be sad that our first burst of enthusiasm in following Jesus has faded a bit over the years. But it may be that all that is happening is that we are expressing our faith differently in these different seasons of life. Being more restrained or more reflective is not necessarily a sign of fading faith.

Change is both necessary and inevitable in Christian living. This text reminds us that we don’t stay as infants in the faith. We grow up, we are to become wiser and think more maturely about our faith as we grow older. Clinging to a childhood Sunday-School faith is nothing to boast about: we certainly hold on to the basics but must be prepared to change and grow over time. A childlike faith does not mean a childish faith.

Certain stages in life will have us on milk rather than solids. But these are only stages, not permanent realities. We will have seasons of exuberance and seasons of reflection; there will be downpours and there will be droughts. Our life seasons change; the God for all seasons does not change.

Blessings
David

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