I’ve watched it all year—the seasonal rhythm of the birds around my house.

I saw them arrive in early spring, their triumphant songs spinning into the still-thawing air. I watched them claim their territories and construct their nests, huddling on the treasure of speckled eggs. And I even witnessed the miracle of those eggs hatching, shattering shells giving way to the lolling heads and fuzzy down of baby birds.

But the symphony of the nesting season is reaching its crescendo. All the eggs are hatched, all the chicks transformed from hapless nestlings to alert juvenile birds. And now I marvel at the next stage of this process—with their parents as their guides, the young birds are finally ready to explore life beyond the nest. And one of the first places on our property to which the parents introduce these fledglings is, unsurprisingly, our birdfeeders.

I welcome many different species of young birds to the feeders each summer. There are the nuthatches, with their curious faces and eager spirits, creeping over all the branches. There are the wrens—round, tailless creatures with a heaping dose of cheekiness. There are baby woodpeckers—usually two or three of these stripy gray juveniles, drilling experimentally in the trees. But of all the young birds that visit our feeders, my personal favorite is the baby cardinals.

There are many factors that draw me to the baby cardinals. For one thing, they’re adorable. Unlike their vivid red parents, the young cardinals are a blurry color somewhere between brown and rust, with downy feathers and an odd topknot that will become the signature crest. And their personalities are larger than life: they’re feisty little birds with a great deal of quirky curiosity. But the most endearing aspect of the baby cardinals is their unique behavior at the birdfeeders.

You see, when the juvenile cardinals come to the birdfeeders, they don’t crack seeds or nibble at suet for themselves. Instead, they huddle on the ground under the feeder and beg for the parents to feed them. A fledgling will quiver its wings rapidly and squeak with a shrill whirring noise until one of the parents fetches a seed from the birdfeeder and pokes it into the young one’s beak. But as soon as that seed is gobbled down, another one is demanded. The harassed parents dart frantically back and forth with seed after seed after seed, but still the young ones demand more and more food and attention.

The baby birds’ begging for seeds is cute and humorous behavior. But unfortunately, we can often see a similar pattern in our own spiritual lives. No, we probably don’t expect others to feed us physically, but we often rely on them to feed us spiritually. God’s Word is a sumptuous feast, and we’re invited to sit at the table and partake of its bounty. But instead of reaching for the riches, we often find ourselves complacently waiting to be served.

This tendency can appear under various disguises. Perhaps we find that our Bibles are only opened on Sundays during the sermon at church. Or perhaps we view spiritual study as an esoteric duty assigned only to theologians. Maybe we’ve even noticed that our perspectives on spiritual topics are formed not by our own application of Scripture, but by the hot-button takes of popular preachers or teachers or social media influencers. No matter how this manifests, the problem is the same: we’re receiving our spirituality secondhand.

Please understand: I’m not saying reliance on others is always wrong. In fact, it’s often simply a natural spiritual process. When we’re new to the faith, we’ll undergo a period of immaturity in which we’ll find ourselves leaning on the counsel and guidance of other Christians. This is normal and healthy, just as it’s expected for the baby cardinals to look to their parents for food when they’re first hatched. But as the birds grow, they’re designed to feed themselves—and so are we. The problem comes not when we require extra care as infants in the faith, but when we refuse to move beyond that stage and assume responsibility for our own spiritual well-being.

And this isn’t a problem unique to our twenty-first-century Christianity. In fact, Paul faced this same issue with the church at Corinth. “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3a ESV). The passage makes it clear that these Corinthian believers were stagnating in spiritual immaturity. At the time when they should have been moving forward in the faith and achieving growth for themselves, they were like the baby birds at the feeder—still content to simply be fed by Paul rather than to seek truth for themselves. Instead of receiving Paul’s instruction the way it was intended—as a jumpstart to their own spiritual walk—they were clinging to it as the substance of their own belief. But unlike the parent cardinals, Paul didn’t coddle these believers! Instead, he explained why this practice couldn’t continue—and the truths he put forth parallel the young cardinals’ situation.

The first truth is the most obvious: immature believers are dependent on others. By not maturing, the baby cardinals were dependent on their parents for life itself. If anything had befallen the parents, the fledglings would not have survived, because they were entirely helpless on their own. In the same way, stagnating believers are relying on secondhand feeding. Notice Paul’s wording: “I have fed you” (v. 2). If we aren’t equipped to gather our own spiritual nourishment, then we’re relying on a spiritual feeding tube, dependent on external sources for food.

And hanging our spiritual health on anything besides our personal walk with Jesus is not only foolish but also dangerous. That’s because no human, however kind, wise, patient, or godly, is strong enough to serve as the foundation for our spirituality. If our faith is built on a person, then betrayed trust, relational friction, or revealed secrets can crumble the entire structure of our souls. I’m reminded of this every time I hear the news of a scandal involving a pastor, Christian musician, or Bible teacher and see the wake of shattered and confused believers left behind. We must base our faith on nothing less than “Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone”—the only One strong enough to bear the weight of our belief (Ephesians 2:20).

And secondly, immature believers are in danger of eating inadequate food. I’m reminded again of the baby cardinals. By not maturing, they were sentencing themselves to receive a diet of deficit. You see, they were content to continue eating crushed-up seed fragments received from their parents, but that’s not the robust nourishment they needed to grow strong and healthy. In the same way, relying on others for spiritual nutrients renders us in jeopardy of receiving food that’s not suited for us.

In the passage, Paul contrasts milk and solid food to make this point. Milk is the food of newborns—entirely appropriate for a baby but woefully inadequate for an adult. Yet so many of us believers today are content to subsist on “milk.” Instead of developing the spiritual strength to digest more advanced doctrines, we find ourselves still on the basics, unable to move deeper.

And even more serious than inadequate food is the issue of inaccurate food. The Bible warns us that “many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Whether it’s a twisting of a familiar Bible verse, an attempt to reconcile Biblical truth with cultural confusion, or an insistence upon supposed “secret” spiritual knowledge, the world around us—even, sadly, the Christian world—has no shortage of lies to feed willing followers. If we’re willing to swallow whatever we’re fed, then we’re in serious danger of gobbling down misbeliefs that may sound good on the surface but can’t hold their own against Biblical truth.

If we depend on others for spiritual growth, then we’re resigning ourselves to a shaky foundation, insufficient nutrients, and the danger of twisted half-truths. However, as deadly as those effects are, this last problem may be the most serious: immature believers cannot reach others.

Had the baby cardinals continued on their trajectory, they could have never gone on to find mates and hatch their own chicks. The purpose for which they were brought into the world would have gone unfulfilled. And of all the signs of poor spiritual health, this is perhaps the most damaging and the most obvious in the American church today—the lack of desire, intention, or even capacity of believers to reach out to the world around them and replicate disciples. If we’re still relying on external sources for our spiritual food, then we’re in no position to bring that food to others. And we so often see the sad effects: churches cozily contained within their four walls, Christians with no impact on the spheres they inhabit, a gospel trapped within the cage of complacency.

So what is the solution? How can these dangers be addressed? There’s only one hope for reversing this trend: uncovering the cause.

We could blame many contributing factors for this issue. We could point fingers at our modern mindset of instant gratification, an attitude that diverts us to the easiest course. Or the default familiarity of our routines—wearing a comfortable groove in the fabric of our lives. Or the busyness of our culture—who has time for intense spiritual study when so many other things call our name? Or even the plethora of quality spiritual content—as much of a blessing as this can be, it can also serve as an excuse for us to rely on secondhand spirituality. But while all of these help to set the stage, they’re not the real cause. The root is still the same as it was in Paul’s day: our readiness, or our lack thereof.

Just look at the passage again: “And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh” (v. 3a). Don’t miss that key word: ready. Paul didn’t say “And even now you are not yet strong” or “not yet smart” or “not yet equipped.” No, the problem that faced these believers was the same one we wrestle with today: they were not yet ready…because they were still of the flesh.

These Corinthian believers had no shortage of talents or wisdom or teaching or resources. But they simply weren’t ready to grow up. Spiritual maturity wasn’t yet even something they desired to pursue. Like the juvenile cardinals, they found immaturity to be a more comfortable state.

I don’t know about you, but when I consider this, I feel the conviction. I say spiritual growth is important to me—but do I live that out? Do I earnestly seek truth from Scripture and devote time to prayer and challenge myself to move further into the depths of God? Or do I become complacent, content to receive instruction from others without prioritizing my own walk with God? And most serious of all: am I truly ready to grow? These are hard questions, but they’re ones that must be asked—not just for the sake of our own spiritual health, but for the sake of the hurting people around us…people who are waiting, longing, for us to be ready to reach them.

And so I find myself this summer watching the baby birds from my window. I see them underneath the feeders—wings fluttering, mouths gaping, begging for food from their (quite exhausted) parents. But I know that this won’t last forever. Soon enough, the parents will stop feeding the babies, and the young birds (after a suitable period of sulking) will begin to forage for themselves. And then they’ll mature—growing their brilliant red plumage and flying on strong wings and raising chicks of their own. May we choose to mature today. May we all seek to grow up in Christ—ready to reach the world for Him.