Buds and Blooms

This is the season for buds and blooms.  One of the noticeable things is that not everything follows the same schedule.  One of the peach trees has gone through the bud stage, the flowers have bloomed, and green leaves are starting to fill the tree.  Other peach trees look as barren and bleak as mid-winter.  What I almost missed today was the buds swelling on the plum tree.  A few white blooms are even showing.  It is a temptation to buy into the possibility of an early Spring.    

To walk under the limbs filled with swelling buds and flowering blooms is to be reminded of the schedule and order of creation.  Just as each tree moves toward maturity in its own time, so do each one of us in our spiritual lives.  We are not all at the same place in terms of our movement toward spiritual maturity.  Certainly spiritual maturity is the goal of every disciple of Jesus.  Jesus calls us to such as He says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."  (Matthew 5:48)   While not a Greek language scholar, the little learning I did once upon a time back in seminary days taught me that the Greek word translated into English as "perfect"  can also be rendered as "mature."     

Taking this subtlety to heart tells us that spiritual maturity could well be the goal Jesus had in mind.  And if spiritual maturity is the goal of each one of us, it only stands to reason that we are all at a different place on the journey.  There is, therefore, no room for judging others, or thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought since we are all on this journey which is taking us to toward spiritual maturity.  And, of course, it goes without saying that we are not all moving on the same schedule.