Article December 14, 1981 Issue

Our journey to spiritual maturity

DIANE STAUNTON STAPLES

There is a journey that each of us must take to spiritual maturity concerning the things of God. Paul wrote, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."^{I Cor. 13:11.}

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy points out aspects of spiritual immaturity in the second part of her Glossary definition of "children": "Sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being."^{Science and Health, p. 583.}

Surely the characteristics listed here are things we are striving to "put away." In fact, all ungodlike thinking is really "childish." Immature, limited thought does not belong to the real man of God's creating; but such seems to be part of us as long as we allow ourselves to remain in the false childhood of "mortal beliefs" and "material suppositions."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Poem

Because man is at one with God—