For the last 20 some years, finding the answer to this question has been a personal quest of mine. Honestly, I think most American males are secretly on the search for the definitive answer that says, "Yes, you are a mature male, you are an adult to be respected, you have arrived!" -- but when exactly does this occur? How do I know when it is really true of me? And if I am an adult, what sort of attitudes and behaviors would bare witness to my maturity?
In our strange and fragmented metro-sexual world of today, a culture where youth and adolescence is prized, where more and more men would "rather go shopping", the answer to these questions is sincerely hard to come by. And even if a reasonable answer is found, most men aren't so sure that the answer even should be applied to them. Our obsession with sports, sex and visual amusement is so strong and pervasive, that asking a male to "grow-up" and answer the call to maturity is like pulling teeth: 18 to 48 year olds included. Think about, Mick jagger at the age of 70 still can't "Get No ... Satisfaction!" As I read scripture, I know I must answer this question for myself and my sons. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish things." What does that mean? Does that mean no more of watching "Sponge Bob" while eating gum drops and sugar plums? Does it mean walking around in stoic seriousness, no laughing, no crying, and the sharing of emotions are not allowed? Does that mean I must hunt and kill, pull my wife around by the hair and watch only John Wayne movies? What I find interesting about 1 Corinthians 13:11, is that it follows directly behind the classic passage on love. So that must mean maturity has something to do with love. Love? Isn't love one of the primary contributors to male immaturity? Isn't love the one thing holding us back from growing up? We love our "toys", we love "Star Wars", we love "beer and sex?" Biblical "love" however, is completely different than the shallow selfish lust driven "love" the world worships. Biblical love "hates" what is "evil" and prizes what is "good". Biblical love always trusts, protects, endures; and biblical love never fails. For the last two weeks I have been privileged to watch first-hand a man who really loves. Without mentioning his name, this man has stayed by the bedside of his wife as she has undergone some of the most intensive and terrifying medical tests you could ever imagine. Instead of allowing his wife and her family be consumed by doubt and despair, this man faces tough reality head on while always bringing the promise of "hope" to each and every day. He has sacrificed his life to help his wife find new life. His example perfectly models Psalm 112:7, "He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord." I once heard that Jesus, the perfect man, was also the most dependent man who ever lived. He could never do anything without first talking to and hearing from his Father. "He daily needed him!" Maybe that is the key to manhood and maturity: realizing that "trusting in The Lord" is the most manly thing we could ever do. This is a quest that will take a life-time for me and other men like me to figure out. But at least I know where to start >> Following the example of Jesus by being perfectly dependent on the Father. Now that is a man!
4 Comments
Aaron Frick
4/22/2014 11:08:36 am
I think something could be said about that love piece in Jesus's words about the greatest love. Part of the manhood-defining love is the sacrificial part. When a male is willing to "lay down his life" for another. Whether it's his wife, or children, or his neighbor... I'd accept a definition of manhood that had that in it somewhere.
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dan Laughlin
4/22/2014 11:21:56 am
I like your veiwpoint on things; how you take are society and its beliefs and how it influences us more than any believer wants to admit. You stated that Jesus always looked to God his father for answers, but what are us as men to do when we seek God for answers but his answers never come or come late.
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Christopher Weeks
4/22/2014 12:01:38 pm
Faith asks us to trust him, his heart and his timing. The most powerful verse on your question Dan is in Hebrews 11 around verse 11-14 where it says many of the people of faith did not receive the promises in this life but welcomed them from a distance... Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.
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Christopher Weeks
4/22/2014 12:05:51 pm
I just checked, it is Hebrews 11:13-16...faith is difficult but it is the only real thing that pleases God (Hebrews 11:6).
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