Lessons of Discipleship (Part II)

Lesson #2: People grow up.
It seems obvious but this one was the lesson that took me the longest to learn. As I mentioned here, we need three key people to help us mature as Christians. We need a spiritual parent, a spiritual friend and a spiritual child. As a mentor or spiritual parent, I know I was effective in this purpose in at least one of my relationships.

My problem was that I continued to view this relationship on a parent-child level well after it had moved into the friend-friend level. I continued to 'teach' and assume the mentoring role even though the person I was mentoring had already matured and established their own identity as a Christian.

It was great to see tangible examples of new maturity in my friend's life over the years, but my old mind set led to an arrogance on my part. It led me to assume a need that no longer existed and to behave in a way that was no longer needed. I know it was no picnic to be on the receiving end of my actions, as well intentioned as they may have been.

I did not learn discipleship or mentoring principles from a book, though I did read a couple of them. I did not know that the relationship can evolve and change like this and so I learned this lesson the hard way, from real life, as we humans are prone to do.

Fortunately in my case, my friend was wise enough to work with me to show me how things had changed. It did take several months. It did take several pointed discussions. We did have to go through some hurt feelings on both sides and wrestle with our own attitudes. In the end, though, I learned from it and we maintained our close relationship. We eventually acknowledged that our relationship had changed - or more accurately, I acknowledged it after the fact.

I've always found it funny that many people will complain about their leaders, detailing and gossiping about their faults without actually speaking to them and trying to help them learn. If we're mature and wise enough to clearly see how wrong another person is, then we should be mature and wise enough to help that person understand what we know. And if we're not capable of doing so, chances are that we still need to grow a little more.

I appreciate that my friend didn't write me off despite my persistant immaturity and I'm forever grateful that he has taught me as much as I taught him.

Reference: Part I