A critical indicator of spiritual maturity is the decreasing number of things a person expects from this world. As age and life experience increase, the space for enjoying the world becomes narrower, and the objects of worldly happiness become more limited. At some point, a person realizes that the world no longer offers complete and lasting happiness. This awareness is not a sign of despair but of maturity.
In youth, people generally live with many expectations. There are many things they want to attain: education that yields degrees, jobs that provide income, a life partner who promises happiness, children who bring complete joy, and various facilities thought to perfect life. In this process, often without realizing it, people become “indebted” to the world. The world plants expectations that bind them, so that they feel they cannot help but desire what the world offers.
This phenomenon explains why, as they grow older, several people become more easily angered and harsher. Some disappointments are unexpressed and unresolved, which then accumulate into anger. Because they do not know how to channel that anger, even small things can trigger emotional outbursts. From a spiritual perspective, such a condition shows a soul that is being shaped away from the light and increasingly dominated by darkness. Tragically, many people are being led in this direction without realizing it—toward a life without thirst for spiritual things and without longing for God.
Most people still think their happiness is incomplete because they have not yet attained many worldly things. This way of thinking is actually a sign that spiritual maturity has not yet been achieved. True maturity is marked by the awareness that there are fewer and fewer things that can be hoped for from this world.
This awareness often becomes stronger when someone enters married life. At this stage, a person begins to realize that life’s satisfaction is limited: household life, sexual relations, and the presence of children do not always bring the happiness imagined. In fact, under certain conditions, a misguided marriage can become a source of deep suffering. The situation becomes even heavier when family relationships are troubled, children are unfilial, economic conditions do not improve, or illnesses come one after another.
The reality of life shows how short and fragile human life is. Life’s tragedies are not experienced only by others, but also by oneself. This awareness should prepare a person to live with an eternal orientation. Human beings are called to become people who are ready to “pack up,” that is, to have an inner condition that supports the final goal: life in the New Heaven and Earth. For this, a strong commitment is needed to remain faithful and steadfast in the truth.
Ironically, a comfortable life because everything is running well—healthy, financially sufficient, and free from major problems—often makes it difficult for people to accept pure truth. Even when that truth is heard, there is not always a longing to put it into real life. In such conditions, spiritual life becomes dull, and the orientation toward eternity fades. Jesus Himself said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Wealth and comfort often enlarge a person’s “wings,” but not to fly toward eternity, rather to maintain power, pride, and a false sense of security in this world.
Therefore, as a person matures, they realize that the world cannot make them happy. At this point, life converges on a single center: God, the only source of happiness. When God becomes the only One hoped for, only then can a person be called a beloved of God—someone who lives in an intimate and whole relationship with Him.
The story of Abraham illustrates this principle powerfully. For decades, Abraham waited for a child, a waiting period that was psychologically and emotionally very heavy. When Isaac was finally born, it cannot be denied that Isaac became a great source of joy for Abraham. At that point, Abraham could have felt that his life was complete. Yet it was precisely there that God tested his heart. Isaac had the potential to replace God as the center of Abraham’s heart. God desires a friend whose heart is not bound to anyone or anything other than Himself alone.
The test God gave to Abraham was, in essence, a question about the deepest priority: choosing the gift or the Giver, choosing the blessing or the Giver of the blessing. Abraham was called to prove that his love and loyalty to God surpassed everything that was most precious in his life. The same question is actually addressed to every believer: what is the center of one’s happiness in life, and who is truly chosen when one must determine the final direction of life?