When younger, I assumed mature Christianity should always be radical, zealous, no-holds-barred. The older I get, the more I think maturity looks like humble, faithful, daily, not-exciting plodding. The Lord might raise up a few of the former; most of us, I think, are the latter.

One place this makes a difference is how we work for change, whether pastoral, political, social, etc. If you're always swinging for home runs, you'll grow discouraged and burnt out. If you swing instead for base hits--small, incremental changes--you may endure longer and do more

As I've often heard from older, wiser folk, young people tend to overestimate what they can do in the short-term, and underestimate what they can do in the long term. HT: @MarkDever (on this whole thread)

Yes, well said, Bethany. You begin to realize that the controversies of the moment always blow over, and they're not all worth getting exercised about.