A sign of emotional maturity is enough confidence in one’s own self to stand up for one’s own values. A person’s value system is a vital part of his or her world view. To understand someone’s world view, one observes that person’s behavior, and from that behavior one can determine what his or her value system is—because one inevitably acts out the values they have.
If a person does not live out his own stated value system, then he doesn’t really believe in it. If he says God designed sex for the completion of marriage, yet is sexually active before marriage, his true world view is in conflict with his claimed beliefs. One’s physical maturity overrides one’s lack of emotional, intellectual, social and moral maturity.
Another sign of maturity is the ability to delay gratification until a future time. When a small child is given two pieces of candy, he wants to devour both of them. He doesn’t understand why he should put one aside for later—he is not mature enough to understand. Likewise, a physically mature yet otherwise immature teenager does not understand that sex does not make instant adults.
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