“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food….” (I Corinthians 3:1-2)
Recently, I said to a group of men and women in a civic club meeting, “Do you recall when you were about 10 years old? If you walked into a room like this and looked around, you would have thought we were all adults. At that time, it seemed to you that adults were a separate species of humans. But now….”
“Now that you are grown, you know something that would have surprised you no end when you were a child: There are no grownups. We’re all kids.”
We have all had the experience of looking in the mirror and being shocked to discover an adult looking back at us. We think to yourself, “I don’t feel like I’m that old. I still feel the same as when I was a child.”
You, too? We all have.
Only, we’re at different levels of maturity. None of us–okay, we’ll reluctantly grant a few exceptions here and there–has attained anything like full adulthood.
That’s one reason we stand in awe when we come into contact with a genuine, bonafide adult. Someone who has grown up mentally and socially, who has his impulses under control, who thinks deeply and speaks carefully and wisely, and is the very definition of integrity and responsibility.
They are rare, to be sure.