I still have some growing up to do.

Last night someone said something simple, but it stuck with me in a way I didn’t expect.

I was talking with another Dad about our kids. We are both here helping chaperone our kids senior spring break trip, and we’ve been watching this group of students all week. Honestly, they’re a great group. You can see growth in them. You can see maturity starting to take shape, a bit of craziness at times, but it’s been awesome so far. And I made a comment like, “They’re an amazing group… of course they still have some growing up to do.”

And without missing a beat, the other Dad looked at me and said, “Paul… I still have some growing up to do too.”

That landed.

Because it’s true. Not just for him. Not just for these students. For me. For all of us.

If we’re honest, none of us have arrived. And yet somehow, over time, it’s easy to start living like we have. Like we’ve figured enough out. Like we’ve settled into something comfortable. Like there isn’t still so much more to learn, so much more to surrender, so much more of Jesus to actually see clearly.

And today being Palm Sunday… it just presses that question even deeper.

All those years ago, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the crowds were loud. Celebrating. Waving palm branches. Declaring Him King. But underneath all that praise was a belief about who He was supposed to be. They thought they were watching the beginning of a revolution. They thought Rome was about to fall. They thought everything was finally going to go their way.

They thought they had arrived at the moment their lives had been building toward.

But they couldn’t see it.

Jesus wasn’t coming to take power the way they expected. He wasn’t there to fulfill their version of victory. And as the week unfolded, as His words and actions didn’t match their expectations, many of those same voices faded. Some turned away. One of His own traded Him for thirty pieces of silver.

It makes me wonder how often we’re not that different.

How easily we place Jesus into the role we want Him to play. How quickly we attach His name to our opinions, our preferences, our sense of how things should go. And when He doesn’t move the way we expected, when life doesn’t unfold the way we thought it would, something in us is tempted to pull back… or worse, to settle for something lesser.

Pride has a way of walking quietly beside us like a friend. It convinces us we’re further along than we are. That we see clearly enough. That we’ve arrived at a place where we don’t really need to be stretched anymore.

But moments like tonight remind me how grateful I am that there is still more growth ahead. More to learn. More to lay down. More of Jesus to discover beyond the version I’ve been comfortable with.

Maybe that’s the invitation of this week.

Not to stand in the crowd thinking we understand it all… but to walk with Him through it. To stay close even when it doesn’t look the way we thought it would. To let Him reshape what we thought we knew.

Because the truth is… I still have some growing up to do.

And I’m thankful He’s not finished with me yet.