Rising to adulthood

1 Corinthians 13:11  "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

Children and adults have a much different perspective on life.  We have different priorities, different desires, different concerns, different motivations.  The progression to adulthood is impacted by a variety of forces.  Direct observation of the adults you saw as a child has a major impact on how a child defines adulthood.  Experiences, both positive and negative, affect how you want to see yourself as an adult.  We want to emulate the good things we experienced and live opposite of the bad things we experienced.

Whether your focus lies on doing good things or on not doing bad things is a major difference.  I just heard a quote from two teenage brothers who wrote a book called Do Hard Things.  The idea was that you can be known for the bad things you do, for the bad things you don't do, or for the good things you do.  Children spend much of their existence trying to avoid wrath by not doing bad things.  Adults are called to a much higher standard- to do good things, to do hard things.  Although the intended audience for this book is teenagers, the message is really about adulthood and taking hold of the responsibilities of adulthood.

Although there are many child-like qualities we should retain, we are to rise to the level of adulthood.  Lord, I pray that you will show me where I am still hanging onto thoughts, ideas, actions or habits that are unfitting of the manhood You have called me into.  Help me to continue to learn what it means to be a man, to be Your child, and to live and act in a way that honors and glorifies You.  And most of all, help me to truly know what it means to have everything I think, say and do to be motivated by love.