As a young man growing up in the Methodist Church, I had a dear pastor at our little country church named Harry Reeves. He was a very dear man and spiritual mentor to our entire family. Prior to his passing, he shared a copy of E. Stanley Jones’ “Christian Maturity” with my mom and added his personal inscription to make it a very personal gift, indeed. It was treasured by my mom for the remainder of her life.
In 2012, she passed away and is now with my dad and Harry Reeves in paradise. My sister, Carol, found among my mom’s many books that copy of “Christian Maturity” and was kind enough to gift it to me.
How precious is this book! It has become one of my most prized possessions as it is very special to me on so many different levels. I read it daily as I will do for the remainder of my life. I’ve garnered so much value from my daily reading. Dr. Jones no doubt is happy to see me sharing abundantly the wisdom and inspiration gained from that reading. I found additional copies and sent one to each of my adult children.
Most recently, while reading page 338 about the translation of St. Paul’s message on love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 from “love is…” to “I am…” as a way of measuring our personal maturity, I was profoundly struck by the brilliance of that idea. As I do workshops in personal effectiveness, I think like a “workshop guy” and decided to leverage that wonderful idea into a useful tool for measuring personal maturity as evidenced by our ability to consistently enjoy the dividends of maturity; namely, our ability to be kind, patient, etc. in our daily walk.
Great ideas, inspiration, challenging thoughts when realized are best leveraged by passing them on. It is my intent to continue to share abundantly and thereby enhance the value of the wisdom of E. Stanley Jones’ written works.
