During a routine check up of my 14 month old daughter, the healthvisitor asked, “Can she walk unaided? Can she cruise? Can she stoop? Does she climb the stairs? Does she try to feed herself?”, to which I answered yes expect for the first question.
The healthvisitor seemed pleased! She weighed my daughter, took some measurements and charted the results. Graph showed that the development was commensurate with her age – upper percentile. Yeee–good news. No cause for alarm.
Back to the first question, she assured me that the timeline for babies to start walking is between 10 – 17 months so if at 17 months, she still can’t walk unaided, we should get concerned.
In a nutshell, there is an expectation that babies will grow into toddlers into youths into adults and there are milestones to look out for during each stage. As a parent, I am always very expectant to see each milestone crossed, it gives me unspeakable joy and sense of fulfilment.
Just as it is in the physical, same applies in the spiritual particularly our christian walk. I recall Peter said, those who recently got saved should desire the sincere spiritual milk that they might grow up in faith. 1 Peter 2:2
Paul told the Colossians to continue to live in Him, as they had received Christ, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in faith. Col 2:1
The Hebrew Christians (Heb 5:11-13), were chastised because they were slow to learn, they could not understand solid teaching. It was expected of them, as at that time since when they had believed, to be teachers of the word. The opposite was the case – they had not grown past the elementary truths of God’s words. They still needed milk.
In 1 Cor 3:1-2, Paul said of the Corinthians, I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed you are still not ready.
There was an expectation that those Christians will grow and move from milk to solid. Perhaps, they neglected the advice Paul gave the Colossians -‘rooted and built up’.
Milestones. Do you have any you have crossed since you believed? Can you chart your progress/growth? How does your graph look like?
temitopebj 