There are some shows on television I watch with my children.  The baby loves to watch “Fuller House”.  My son and I loved watching “A Series of Unfortunate Events”.  My oldest loves watching people make Pinterest fails on “Nailed It.” We’ve spent hours curled up on the couch, or huddled up in my bed together, being grateful for our Netflix subscription.

These shows are kid friendly, and in most cases, entertaining to the adults in the room. (I’m not a fan, of Fuller House, but it keeps my kid sitting still for a few minutes.)  Some of the humor goes over my kids’ heads, but it’s not too raunchy, and usually I just explain why I’m laughing and they are not.

There are some shows I watch by myself.  For instance, I just started watching season one of Game of Thrones.  There is nothing about “Game of Thrones” that is appropriate for my children to watch.  I had to avert my eyes a few times in the first episode.  I was not prepared for the weight of what I was watching.  I would not recommend that anyone under the age of 18 watch that show.

Video games, TV shows, movies and music often have a rating system that tells you whether or not the content is inappropriate for certain audiences.  There are things for general audiences.  That means anybody and everybody would probably feel comfortable watching.   There are other ratings that suggest that not everybody can handle the material,  the most curious being “for mature audiences only.”

I feel like there are passages of scripture that ought to come with these warning labels as well.  Obviously, there are some Old Testament passages we just don’t teach our babies in Sunday school. We never talk about the rape of Tamar, or the Levite concubine.  Those passages obviously are hard to discuss.

But there are New Testament ideas that also ought to be labeled.  The apostle Paul talked about the milk of the word, and the meat.  Some of us, no matter how old we are, are not prepared to really do the work of chewing on the word of God.

Praying for your enemies and blessing folks that curse you requires a level of maturity quite a few of us have not yet reached.

God’s Grace being sufficient is pretty easy to swallow, but  the thorn in my flesh that comes with that grace is a whole another matter.

Rejoicing in the Lord, always seems sweet at first glance.., until you get to the day you don’t necessarily feel like rejoicing and then you’ve got to chew a little while on it before it becomes palatable.

The transition from milk to meat is gradual.  Babies don’t go from Similac to steak in a day.  Nor do people of faith wake up one day and no it all figured out. Be patient with each other. Be patient with yourself, and by all means, be patient with me.  May we all grow in grace and knowledge as we come to maturity.

Mama Radford

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