A Purpose Driven Life - Day 23

“Oh, grow up already!” How many times have we heard that in our lives? From mothers, fathers, (soon to be) ex-girlfriends – hopefully not ex-wives? How difficult it is for men to leave childhood behind. Be it sports, partying, sex, what have you, we tend to not let go of surficial pleasures at expense to everything else. Some men excuse their self-infatuation with sports, for example, by living out old sport fantasies through their sons. “Quality time” between father and son is how it’s spun, but on several notable occasions results in the father making a complete ass of himself with game officials, other parents, etc, in the best ending examples.

I remember the movie “North Dallas Forty” with Nick Nolte as the suffering character and G.D. Spraidlin as the Tom Landry knock-off. Tom musta been a real religious nut according to this script - that incidentally replayed several times in different movies with Nolte as the same oppressed character in a variety of different careers and situations. A "Deep Actor" is something I don’t believe Nolte has ever been accused of. Anyway, the Landry character’s mischaracterization of Paul’s chapter on love (“I thought as a child…” etc.) was either ignorant of Paul’s meaning or could of cared less. Either way that quote from Paul has stuck with me always – “I put childish ways behind me.” Ouch. I’m not a nerd that avoids sports, but I have found that men’s league are often partially populated by men that are… weeelll… “Maturity Challenged” to put it lightly. The partial population got to be too much after awhile, so I stick with my wee morning 24-Hour workouts nowadaze. Not exactly community building, but there is something to said for sanity.

Sex also brings all sorts of destructive results to men and those around him if it is not understood in its biblical context - humans (a man and a woman, that is) valuing each other in a deeply intimate way. This post would never end diving into that well.

To sum up, in many ways men in particular refuse to grow up. My walk with Christ is so much more than it was even just a year ago. The rewards have been many, but I still feel the tug of “childish ways.” With God resetting the auto-pilot ever so slightly and steadily, those tugs are getting easier to resist. Thank my Lord for the grace You've shown me in that struggle.