Today, we live in an age shaped by instant reactions and immediate rewards. With a single click, we earn money, complete purchases, or launch games. What once took three or four days to arrive now appears on our doorstep overnight. Many jobs offer wages the same day or shortly after. According to a psychiatrist specializing in mental health, one key reason people so easily fall into addiction—whether to gambling, shopping, gaming, or alcohol—is the immediacy of the reward. When gratification is instant, dopamine—a neurotransmitter that produces feelings of pleasure and happiness—is rapidly released to the brain’s frontal lobe, reinforcing the behavior and making it powerfully addictive.
This expert defined maturity as the capacity to wait for delayed rewards rather than yielding to the lure of instant gratification. A mature person, then, is one who endures the wait and trusts in the outcome, even when the results are not immediately visible.
This brought to mind the biblical virtue of patience. Among the many qualities God’s people must cultivate as they fix their eyes on the hope of heaven, patience stands as a pillar. It is the strength to persevere—to wait for the spiritual reward that does not come at once. The life of faith can often feel unrewarded in the present, which is why patience is so vital. Yet at the end of our endurance, salvation awaits. I long to become a mature child of heaven—one who endures to the end, walks faithfully through every trial, and at last receives the promised reward prepared for us.