When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. (1 Cor 13:11) 

I remember smiling to myself when I heard this being read in church recently. For no other reason than the simple fact that if there was anyone who hadn’t quite put the ways of childhood behind them, it was me. The new year has come and I have done the math. Age might be just a number but some numbers are bigger than others; and my age is, by all yardsticks, a very adult number. And yet… 

The challenge is always to try and be a responsible adult whilst having just enough of the child inside, is it not? The child who takes pleasure in the simple things; who gets excited by a jar of Nutella or a free doughnut. The child who believes that dreams are not just a disruption to your sleep but the clues to a game or a piece of the puzzle. The child who still wonders at the world around them, and lives and laughs and loves all in the same beautiful moment. 

I don’t think that adults are necessarily averse to wonderment per se, but there are most certainly things considered inappropriate when you go through that door marked Adulthood. You must speak in a certain way. You definitely don’t laugh too loud and/or too often, and if you do, you risk carrying a faint hint of mental illness around with you. And while there are lots of fun things about being an adult that I wouldn’t want to give up, tell me you haven’t once looked back at that door, and wished you could go back just for a while? I know I have.

So for 2016, my little quest is to walk the tightrope between maturity and mischief, between worry and wonder, and between being carefree and calculated. And if I fall off that tightrope at some point in the year, I’m going to do the only logical thing you can do in those circumstances: giggle like a baby.