Am I a Mature Christian?

I’m a fan of gut-check moments.  It’s not that I enjoy them when they occur – they always show up at the most inopportune, conflicted times.  But the clarity of mind and of my convictions that comes as a result of these moments is completely worth it.  In some moments, I discover that I simply don’t believe what I once thought I believed.  In others, I find that what I once considered a malleable and soft position was, in fact, something I would go to the wall over.  And it’s in the midst of a gut-check moment that I believe we really discover where we stand in our belief.

Am I a Mature Christian?

When troubles come, where do we go?  When sin rears it’s ugly head and affects us in ways that our regenerated hearts can no longer stand, where do we turn?  In the book of Job, at no fault of his own, Job lost everything: his children, his wealth, his joy, everything.  (Well, everything but his wife, who encouraged him to “curse God and die.”  She was less than helpful.)  Job understood that it was God who ultimately allowed this evil to occur. (Job 1:21)  And yet, it was to his gracious God that he turned to.

Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might even come to his seat! Job 23:3

Job didn’t shrink back from God or hide his face. He sought the only comfort and solace that could match his grief and his loss. In his sermon, Order and Argument in Prayer, C.H. Spurgeon makes a statement that stood out to me as I read it today.

God’s children run home when the storm comes on. It is the heaven-born instinct of a gracious soul to seek shelter from all ills beneath the wings of Jehovah. “He that hath made his refuge God,” might serve as the title of a true believer. A hypocrite, when he feels that he has been afflicted by God, resents the infliction, and, like a slave, would run from the master who has scourged him; but not so of the true heir of heaven, he kisses the hand which smote him, and seeks shelter from the rod in the bosom of that very God who frowned upon him.

So the gut-check question in the midst of struggle and sorrow – the barometer of your faith – is this,

To whom do you turn in the most difficult situations and scenarios?

If the answer is to anyone or anything apart from Christ, there’s work to be done.  Dive into the Scriptures that probe the depths of God.  Learn more of his goodness, his justice, his mercy and grace.  And seek him with everything that you are and everything that you have.

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