The Scriptures refer to the Covenant People as children as both an encouragement and rebuke. We are the children of God. While God desires that we retain some childlike qualities and humble, child-like assessments of our own abilities, he does not desire that his people [corporately] go to Neverland to stay infantile or stagnant in our spiritual development.
Jesus set a high standard for all those who see themselves as mature when he took up a child to himself saying, “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:2-4) Christ is calling us to the credulity of children. The Apostle Peter, too, commends children to us in that infants desire their mother’s milk as the Covenant People are to desire the Word of God. Peter calls the Covenant People to the earnestness of children in their need for nourishment.
Yet, paradoxically, the Scripture often challenges us to grow up from childhood. Citing the gifts Christ has given the Church from his Ascension, Paul states their efficacy changes the Covenant People so that they are “no more children,” with a gullibility that tosses them about in every wind of doctrine. (Eph. 4:14) Indeed the Covenant People are made into a new man in the new Man, Christ our Lord. (Eh. 2:15) So the Lord expects maturity from his people, and the Apostle Paul is disappointed with the Corinthian Church in that their fleshliness has held them back to the infancy of milk rather than the solid food of the Word. (1 Cor. 3:1-3) The Author of Hebrews similarly rebukes the Covenant People for having need of milk, charging that the reason owes to having become dull and lazy of hearing. (Heb. 5:11)
So then we are left with the paradox that the people of God must be childlike and yet not remain stuck in childhood.