A Roadmap to Maturity
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved looking out the window of the car and I’ve loved maps—because I’ve wanted to know where I am and where I’m going.
When I was in elementary school, we made three road trips from Minnesota to Florida to visit my grandparents, who lived there. And at least once, I recall, my dad went to AAA to get these strange maps call “Trip Tiks”—long, skinny maps with our highway and freeway route to get there highlighted by a AAA agent.
Maps help us know where we are and where we’re going. And they can also keep us from taking wrong roads and turns along the way.
It’s the same with our personal, emotional and spiritual maturity. It helps to have a map to help us see what stage of maturity we’re currently at, where our growth might be stunted, and to have mile-markers along the way to help us know what next developmental tasks we may still need to accomplish.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Jim Wilder and others at Shepherd’s House in Southern California developed what they call the “Life Model” to provide a map and mile-markers for our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual development. Each of these stages can bring clarity as we grow in our joy and capacity to handle more responsibilities and weight in life, and to reach the potential God has for us.
These are outlined more fully in Appendix 6 of Wilder’s book, Joy Starts Here, but include the following six stages:
· Unborn (Ideal age: Conception through birth)
· Infant (Ideal age: birth through age 4)
· Child (Ideal age: 4-13)
· Adult (Ideal age: 13 through having first child)
· Parent (Ideal age: From first child through youngest child becoming adult at age 13)
· Elder (Ideal age: When youngest child becomes an adult)
Each stage includes what we need and the tasks we need to accomplish, and each stage builds on the previous stage. As we grow and mature through these stages, we’re able to take care of more people and grow in our emotional capacity, as well as respecting our limitations (for example, a child learns to take care of themselves; an adult learns to take care of themselves and one other; a parent learns to take care of at least three, and an elder learns to take care of many people in a community).
I encourage you to learn more by purchasing Wilder’s Joy Starts Here book at www.joystartshere.com; you can also learn more by receiving a free download at https://www.lifemodel.org/download/LM%20maturity%20list.pdf.
As we continue to grow through these stages we can give life, look for people and places to share joy, delight in relationships, and create a sense of belonging wherever we go. I look forward to hearing from you as you follow this map and travel down the road to greater maturity!