I am going to tell you something that you have probably been wanting to hear for a long time now. In all likelihood, you have believed it longer than you really should have, but I suppose nobody can ever really know the answer to that. It is this: you are not a child anymore. Before you get a big head and stop obeying anyone in authority over you, I need to drop this little nugget your way: you are not a man yet either. You are stuck somewhere in between in that awkward stage they call teenager.
I didn’t mean to fill your balloon with helium-enriched air only to pop it, but it is a cold, hard fact. There comes a point in every guy’s life when he decides he doesn’t want to be treated like a little kid anymore. We go through a mental switch that takes us from protected to protector; from comforted to comforter; from player to worker; from helpless to decision maker; and ultimately, from boyhood to manhood. But where does that switch take place exactly? Who is the one that can ultimately decide where boyhood stops and manhood starts? These are pretty much unanswerable questions. There is no formula to plug into that declares you a man after the “equals” sign. It is a process, and right now, you are in the middle of it.
It’s gonna take everything you’ve got to make it through these years in your life. It is going to drain every ounce of your spiritual energy. It is going to sap a lot of physical strength sometimes (doesn’t Isaiah 40:30 say, “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:”?). These years are going to try your patience, and they’re gonna put to test everything that you have been taught up until now. At times you’ll feel like you are on top of the world, and at other times you’ll wish the world would just go away and quit looking at your pimpled face like you’re the biggest nerd that ever walked on two legs – and that is exactly how you’ll feel about yourself. You will face a lot of hardships that, very likely, you will only face in this period of your life.
You’ll probably go through a stage where you feel a strong attraction toward the “girl of your dreams.” You’ll realize she doesn’t like you and never will and you will feel heartbreak. You’ll probably find another “girl of your dreams” and feel heartbreak again. It is the emotional highs and lows of these high school years that make them what they are.
You’ll probably be surprised by the changes in your body, too. No one will be able to rip from your memory the day that your principal comes to tell you that you need to start shaving every day because you’re looking scraggly, or the day you first noticed something more than peach fuzz on your legs or in your armpits. There is nothing that makes you feel more like you are becoming a man than that. And to top it all off, your voice will crack and squeak and go from sounding like someone is stepping on a soprano’s foot to the exaggerated bass tones you will force from your vocal cords.
And you’ll have to endure it all.
So I’m going to give you a proposal. Instead of just surviving this time in your life; instead of being “just another average teenager”; rather than wasting this time in your life with the hope of being useful as an adult, why don’t you make this time in your life a thriving success for God and holiness.
It is an idea so contrary to our culture, even in Christian circles, that it may actually sound a bit crazy to you. You have so many other things that you would rather do than be holy, I know. You may be looked at as weird by your friends. You may not have as many friends. In fact, you may even find that you don’t have any friends at all if you will go “all out” for God. That is the risk you take when you embrace such a radical existence.
But I ask you this: what friend, or what video game, or what popularity is more important than a true relationship with Jesus Christ? If you’re honest, you will have to agree that there is nothing more important. That being the case, then why are so few Christian young men truly “sold out” to God? Why are guys so wrapped up in sports or movies or girls to care about the bond that ties them to Jesus Christ? What keeps young men from adopting the standards and convictions of the Word of God? It is these questions that we will attempt to discuss in this book.
A legend says that bald eagles will make the critical journey once in their lifetime. They will fly as high as possible onto the rocky crags of a cliff and perform the deed. They will use their powerful beak that normally tears apart the flesh of their prey and pluck out every single one of their feathers. Then they will use that beak to yank out every last formidable talon that once captured and conquered its victims. When that task is finished that eagle will smash his beak against the rock until the last piece of that calcified power is broken from its face. Utterly exposed to the elements or whatever foe can find its way to where that eagle is lying helpless, the eagle waits for the rebuilding process to begin.
Unreservedly bare before its Creator, that eagle will lie ugly and awkward in the sun for warmth, and depend upon a built-up store of fat for food. The process lasts for days, and many eagles never make it out the other side. But…but the ones that do emerge more beautiful than ever, with stronger talons and beaks far more superior to the ones it left behind.
While this is only a legend and highly improbable as a fact (don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story, right), it provides a valuable lesson for your life. You will make the journey through nerdville once in your life. You will feel ugly and awkward and absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Don’t just give in to the peer pressure and the world and die spiritually like so many before you and around you have done and are doing. Determine that, with the Lord’s help, you will emerge on the other side of this time of testing in your life stronger for Him, and more ready to do something for Him than ever before.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like if you would just let God really get ahold of your life? Have you thought about how remarkable it would be to see what God could do with a teenager who would really get on fire for God? The world has yet to see it. Why don’t you determine to be the one that knows what it feels like. There is no existence like an existence that is wrapped around a vibrant, passionate relationship with Jesus.
Be Right
The problem with young men today is that they have learned how to put on an act that pleases their parents and teachers and youth pastors. I had the game figured out when I was in high school. I never got into a lot of trouble because I was afraid of the repercussions and I was worried about my reputation, but it was more of an act than a way of life. I had learned how to do right.
But I wasn’t right, and I didn’t have the complete relationship with Jesus Christ that he wanted me to have. Sure, I read my Bible for the most part; I went on visitation; I was at every teen meeting; I did what was expected of me behaviorally; I did well in school, and I had everyone fooled into thinking I was a good Christian. Truth be told, my effectiveness for the cause of Jesus Christ was nowhere near where it should have or could have been if I had just stopped worrying about only doing right and become more concerned with being right.
Just looking at it, it could seem like those are one and the same, yet they couldn’t be more different. Jesus was always onto the hypocrisies of the Pharisees for only acting right. In Matthew 23:27 He said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.” In the days of Christ, and even into the present, any person who touched a dead body was considered unclean. To keep someone from touching anything dead, tombs would be whitewashed at least once a year so the graves would be clearly marked, and thereby helping people to avoid them. Especially from a distance, these graves would appear very neat and uncontaminated, but of course, the inside was filled with rotting flesh and “uncleanness.”
We are quick to condemn the Pharisees, but are we the same as they? You have everything in place on the outside. You will carry your Bible with you and say the right things around those in authority in your life, but the moment you slip out of their sight or out of earshot, the real you comes out. You act one way at church and around the pastor, and completely different when you are with your friends. Your life will never be useful for God as a teenager, and you will never develop into the man God wants you to become until you stop being so concerned with looking right to those around you and start being right with the God who sees to your very soul.
The End Goal
The world has laid down its standards for what it thinks a guy should be. Much of what is put out there as masculine is in the form of the Hollywood “tough guys.” They have muscles coming out of their ear lobes, and they only wear shirts that show off the ripples on their stomachs and the hunks of meat on their arms, even if it happens to be -25 degrees Fahrenheit. And their chests are so big you could almost live inside of them. They only drive fancy cars. Their only job is to walk around drinking and looking cool, and no matter which babe they want, in the end, she always comes swooning into his arms. And they ride off sweetly into the sunset.
But here’s the kicker for me. Did you ever notice that many of the same guys play in all of the different movies that Hollywood produces? I don’t watch their movies, but it’s hard not to notice with posters plastered in every corner of the globe and with the amount of emphasis put on those things by every faction of our society. Every time he is the hero, and at the end of every movie, it is always a different girl that he wins by his charming good looks and his unstoppable brawn. In other words, no matter how the movies are portrayed , there is one fact that cannot be ignored. It’s not real. I know that may have the equivalent shock factor as was there the first time you found out that Santa Clause was really your dad, and that he was the one eating those cookies and drinking the milk (sorry if that’s the first time you heard about the Santa bit). And I’m sorry to break it to you that way, but that is not the epitome of manhood, as they would have you believe.
So now that you’ve been floored with a new grip on reality you might be asking me what is the epitome of manhood. If it’s not muscles and babes and fast cars, then what is it? That’s what I want to show you in the rest of this book. Manliness, as defined by the world is completely different than the manliness that God defines in His Word. And since when do we compare ourselves to anything other than the Bible anyway?
Guys, here is what it comes down to. You do not know when it will be your turn to stand before God. You don’t know if God has only given you this time as a teenager to do something for Him before He takes you home. This may be your only chance to make your life count for Jesus. If you have spent all of your teenage and young adult years playing video games, watching movies, and drooling over girls that you think are hot, then what are you going to give as an answer if you had to stand before God and tell Him what you did for Him with your life? Imagine how ashamed you will be if irrelevant things of this world are all you have to show for your life. And here’s another reality for you: even if you live to be 150 years old, you are still going to have to answer to God for this time in your life, and what you did for Him.
An ancient legend has been passed down through generations about three travelling nomads who, as they stopped to bed down for the evening were met by an angelic being. Excited at their fortune, they breathlessly awaited what they were sure was going to be a wonderful announcement. The angelic being gave them precise, but somewhat startling instructions. “Pick up as many pebbles as you can and load them into your saddlebags. Travel a day’s journey, and at this time tomorrow you will be both happy and sad.” Then he vanished.
The nomads were bewildered and disappointed. Probably like expecting a car for your sixteenth birthday and getting a basketball. They were on the verge of greatness and all they got was insignificant advice. You could see their excited faces eyebrows drop past their chins. Each one reluctantly grabbed a small handful of pebbles, stuffed it into his saddlebag, and went on setting up camp as if nothing had happened.
The next day, when they arrived at their destination, they began to unpack their bags, and, to their amazement, the pebbles had turned into diamonds. Immediately they were excited at their newfound wealth, but instantly disappointed when they realized that they could have had so much more.
You may not understand the reasoning behind everything God is doing in your life, and you may think that the advice from your parents and the following chapters of this book is mere pebbles. And compared to the enticements of the world, the things of God may have all the glamour and allurement of a pile of pebbles. But one day when you stand before God, all those pebbles will be turned to diamonds. If you will trust God and realize that the things and the teaching He is placing in your life right now will someday turn into the diamonds that will mold you into spiritual manhood, you will gather as many as you can while you have the chance.
vvv
I want my life to count for Jesus,
All earthly joys will quickly fade.
No need to add to worldly riches,
I only seek eternal gain.
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