Quotes About Maturity

The contrast between world and church in this regard is stark: American culture is doing its dead level best with its celebrities, consumerism, and violence to keep us in a perpetually arrested state of adolescence. Yet all the while the church is quietly and without false advertising immersing us in the conditions of becoming mature to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

There are no shortcuts in growing up. The path to maturity is long and arduous. Hurry is no virtue. There is no secret formula squirreled away that will make it easier or quicker. But stories help.

Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your life - children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships - and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives.

Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim.

As we grow into maturity in Christ our distinctiveness is accentuated, not blunted. General directions, useful as they are, don't take into account the details that face us as holiness takes root in the particular social and personal place we are planted.

Jesus said, "Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude and grace. Marriage isn't for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you're capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it.

Love is the most characteristic and comprehensive act of the human being. We are most ourselves when we love; we are most the People of God when we love. But love is not an abstract word defined out of a dictionary. In order to love maturely we have to live and absorb and enter into this world of salvation and freedom, find ourselves in the stories, become familiar with and follow the signposts, learn the life of worship, and realize our unique identity as the People of God who love.

Maturity requires the integration, not the amputation, of what we have received through our conception and birth, our infancy and schooling.

What is repulsive about children - all children - is not that they are not yet adults, but that they are already adults - whining, self-absorbed, demanding attention, unable to care for themselves, throwing tantrums when things don't go their way. Far from what we tell ourselves, children are the most concise expressions of humanity. At least children are unaware of this.

Young enough to keep trying, old enough to know better.

I was just 13 when 'The Big Chill' was released in late September 1983, so I didn't catch all of its nuances when I sneaked into the theater to see it. But I could tell one thing for sure: These people were grown-ups.

I'm 23, and if I wanted to release a record when I was 17, I could have released a record, but I'm really glad I didn't.

I've grown a lot since my first record came out - even since 'Back II da Basics' was released in 2005.

Age is irrelevant. Experience is relevant.

Baseball gives a growing boy self poise and self reliance.

When I admitted I needed to grow old as a woman, it was a relief.

I love being in my forties. Just getting there and realising that you haven't grown horns or boils on your bum, when all the time it had been this thing looming in the future, is such a relief.

If it means being settled and content, getting older can be a relief.

As I get older, there's this new realisation and it's almost like a relief, and that is that I can never be who I once was, but only who I want to become.

Yippee! I can't believe I made it. It feels like a long haul to get here. I'm so fine with it. People want you to have some sort of breakdown, but I'm relieved to be 40 years old, and I've lived a life.

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.

I don't care if you are religious or not and I think the message is that at the end of the day, everybody has to mature and everybody has to heal and mend their own injuries, emotional injuries, on their own pace.

Self-sufficiency is vitally important to my self-respect. I never wanted to rely on my parents in that way, because I knew that if I got used to it, I'd be reliant all my life.

Being a celebrity, you can remain a child for ever, almost. You get away with more; you can get too pampered and it's not healthy.