Love and Maturity

Our journey together began a few days ago, as we began to observe some vital love lessons from the first break-up ever. We established the fact that both spirituality and good intentions are not enough to make love work. Yesterday we went further to discover that, there is a great need to be decisive in handling our love lives, especially if they weigh us down with toxic consequences. Today we want to highlight the crucial role that maturity plays if we are going to be successful in love. The relationship between God and man failed in Genesis because of one-sided maturity or Adam’s immaturity.

This was the ideal portrait of a relationship between God, the epitome of maturity, and Adam, the embodiment of immaturity. The consequence of the relationship was a disastrous breakup. One-sided maturity is not sufficient to guarantee relationship success. There is a major mistake that most mature people make in love. It is their tendency to assume that their personal maturity will compensate for the immaturity of their partners. This doesn’t always work, rather, the immature partner has the capacity to slow down the momentum and rate of advancement for the matured ones.

There is such a thing in life as an“UNEQUAL YOKE”. Be not unequally yoked is a wise admonition. It is not enough for you to be yoked in a relationship. You must prioritize the “EQUALITY” of that yoke. If you don’t settle for your equal, you might be bogged down by the inadequacies of an immature partner.

Adam didn’t have to grow up into manhood, manhood was bestowed upon him. His manhood was neither earned nor learned. This was why he failed at the first opportunity. There are four dimensions of maturity that are essential for you to succeed in love.

• PHYSICAL MATURITY: (growing in stature). There are certain roles in a matured relationship that requires a level of physical development. For example the case of sex in marriage. This is why it is absolutely disgusting that the legislators of certain third world countries are institutionalizing paedophilia (sexual desire in adults for children).
• MENTAL MATURITY: (growing in wisdom). There is a great deal of value that is added to a relationship by our intellectual ability to grasp the complexities of life. I once came across a report that linked the propensity for violence in some individuals to their lack of a robust vocabulary with which to express their feelings. It was said that the more educated couple, because of the vastness of their diction could put a word to what they felt, while the uneducated ones had a tendency to lash out in violence, for want of the right words to express their feelings. This I believe, is why a lot of our prisons are full of uneducated people.
• SPIRITUAL MATURITY: (favour with God). The truth is that our inclination and accountability to a supreme being, which most of us call God, has a great impact on how we relate to one another. In fact, the notion of eternal and ultimate accountability in the life after, for actions, we did on the earth is one of the greatest constraints on reckless human behaviour.
• SOCIAL MATURITY: (favour with man). A major minus for Adam was that he had no other person to relate to other than his wife and a bunch of animals. His social faculties were underdeveloped. Think about it, it takes a huge dimension of social depression to consider chatting up a serpent in your garden. As iron sharpens iron,I believe that strategic social interactions have refining and honing effects on us. So get out of isolation and make some new friends.

Finally, I must emphasize that maturity is a function of exposure. By exposure, I do not mean the exposure of our consciences to most of the vices of our day. But I do mean a general awareness of our environment – the opportunities, dangers and inconsistencies therein. By exposure, I also mean a familiarization with the consequences and outcomes of several decisions, so as to be able to make informed choices when given the opportunity.

Maturity, my friend is to know the good of our world and enjoy it. It is to know the bad of our world and avoid it. It is to know the ugliness of our world and beautify it. It is to know the fears of the world and defy them. It is to know the hurts of our world and heal them. It is to know the opportunities of our world and seize them. It is to know the rhythm of life and to dance to it. It is to know the colours of love and to live it.

THE GREATEST IS LOVE.