When I was nine, my father took me to my aunt and uncle’s house to spend a few weeks while my parents went on a trip back east. There were not a lot of things to do there, and very few kids around and so I spent a lot of time reading the Encyclopedias in my bedroom. When I was near the end of C, I read an article about Czechoslovakia. The article talked about it being a satellite country of the United Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). For some reason or another, I couldn’t figure out how to pronounce the word socialist, so in my mind, I said, “Solocast.” It wasn’t until a few years later that I heard a commentator use the entire name of the U.S.S.R. and I heard him say the word socialist. I remember thinking, “So, that’s how you pronounce that word!”

I bet we can all remember things we thought as a child and that later were dispelled either by time, experience or education. Some of the things we believed may have even gotten us in trouble, i.e. “No, you cannot fly when you jump from one rooftop to another!” Most of us have put away a lot of our childish ways but usually we have not gotten rid of all of them.

Towards the end of the great love chapter in the Bible, we read, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11. When I think about that scripture, I have to ask myself, “Have I put away childish things?“

For the most part, I would answer yes. However, there is a lot of the child still left in me. Yes, I do know how to pronounce more words correctly but what about my thinking. Do I still think like a child sometimes? Do I react like a child on occasion?

I would have to say yes to that. Because my mother died when I was young, I still can’t sit through a Mother’s Day sermon and listen to people comment on what it was like to have a loving mother. Holidays still don’t hold the meaning to me that they do for others as for years I celebrated was just my dad and two brothers. Others may not see it, but deep down I still react like a child when I am in these situations.

Sometimes, the hardest thing to give up are the things we thought or learned when we were younger that are not true. Did our parents follow any superstitions, such as throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder if you spilled some? What about not opening an umbrella in the house? Those things may not affect our lives much, but what about the really important things?

Some people had parents that believed that one race or another was inferior to them. It can take a lifetime to dispel that kind of thinking. I know others who had one or more parents that didn’t believe in God. It has affected their entire lives and certainly their belief systems. It is a real leap of faith for them to believe in the existence of a Supreme Being.

What childish beliefs do you have that are affecting your life? Do you need to take a good look at them and dispel the ones that are negatively affecting you? What about the ones that may negatively affect your life after death?

Childish thoughts and beliefs…let’s confront them and take a good hard look at them. Let’s give them up as we move towards maturity.

Photo courtesy of Michal Jarmoluk. Pixabay.