A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at multiple chapel services during a week-long overnight camp for 5th - 7th graders at Camp Gilead in Carnation, WA. Somewhere in the middle of the week, I extended the invitation to the kids to submit questions directly to me about anything that was on their minds. You might find that rather frightening, but there’s nothing I’d rather do more than meet the kids right where they are. So I told them, “If there are enough questions, I’ll drop everything I’m doing and jump on them (the questions, not the kids) like a kid on a new trampoline at Christmas.” The very next day, hastily-scribbled questions on bits and pieces of scrap paper started rolling in. So, I put my presentations aside and dove in. All in all, I spent four or five chapel services doing nothing but answering their questions…and I still didn’t get through them all. The question posed in the title of this article was one of those submitted.

How to Mature Physically

As I sat down to prayerfully ponder my response, it occurred to me that God uses physical analogies to help us understand how we should mature in Christ Jesus. It seems to me that there are several things that are necessary to achieve robust, physical maturity: food, drink, exercise, sleep, and time.

Food

If you’re of a certain age, you might remember a concert called “Live Aid” that was used to raise $127MM for famine relief in Africa. Around the same time, a group of singers got together and collaborated on the song “We Are the World,” (wherein Willie Nelson confidently sang, “As God has shown us by turning stone to bread” in direct contradiction to Matthew 4:3,4). And who could forget Sally Struthers’ ubiquitous commercials pleading for  “just a little bit of your pocket change” to help starving children around the world?

The reasons for all of this are clear even to the unregenerate: without quality food in sufficient quantities, growth is stunted, disease runs rampant, and if withheld long enough, death ensues.

Drink

The average person can survive for about three days without water; it’s even more important than food. Without sufficient water, mental acuity drops, confusion ensues, muscles easily fatigue and cramps hit you like a freight train. If dehydration gets bad enough, it can lead to heat exhaustion or heat stroke. I’ve had the former—it’s no fun.

Exercise

Doing hard things builds muscular endurance and has numerous physical and mental benefits. Without it, we become weak.

Sleep/Rest

Without sufficient sleep, it becomes difficult to think clearly, irritability sets in, and physical fatigue starts to take hold. A lack of sleep also negatively effects the immune system, opening us up to disease.

Time

The funny thing about physical maturity is that even when we have food, drink, sleep, and exercise in all the right proportions, avoiding excesses in either direction, we don’t mature overnight. Physical maturity does not happen overnight…it’s a process. If you had a childhood like mine (I grew six inches in one summer), it might feel like it happens all at once, but it does require the passage of time.

How to Mature Spiritually

You’re probably on to me by now and know precisely where I’m going with all of this. In order to mature in our walk with Christ, we need the same things we need to mature physically: food, drink, exercise, sleep, and time.

For this section, I’ll just drop an outline of references for you to look up. Due to the magic of the “Interwebz,” though, all you have to do is hover your cursor over each reference to see what each passage in the Bible has to say.

1. Food

   • Matthew 4:4

   • 1 Peter 2:1, 2

   • Hebrews 5:12-14

   • John 6:58

   • John 4:32, 34

2. Drink

   • John 7:37-39

   • 1 Corinthians 10:4

   • 1 Corinthians 12:13

3. Exercise (i.e., doing hard things)

   • 2 Corinthians 12:10

   • James 1:2, 3

4. Sleep/Rest

   • Psalm 37:7

   • Matthew 11:28-30

   • Hebrews 4:9-11

5. Time/Endurance

   • John 15:4, 5

   • James 1:25

   • 2 Timothy 2:10-12

   • Hebrews 12:7, 11

   • James 1:4