12/07/10…Father, what I write now, I write to You. My hopes are
one day my son reads this. For in my life, I so much want to be there for him
to give advice, and yet my life has mostly been spent apart from him. Now at
age 16, he is becoming a man. There is no magic threshold when a boy becomes a
man. There is no magic light switch that suddenly turns on and your
consciousness goes from a boy to a man. Instead, becoming a man is something
that defines itself over time, mostly by one decision at a time, collectively
adding up over years.
When I really think about what I am pondering, I realize my
decisions over time indeed have created the man I am today, for better or for
worse. Every day I have decisions to make. When I see someone who is an
outcast, do I make them feel like an incast? When I see someone who is in dire
need, do I pass by or do I stop? When my wife needs me to talk about my day, do
I or do I retreat where intimacy is not required? When I need to give of myself
to my parents as much as they have given to me, do I? When I have a choice to
open Your Word and study, do I? When I have a chance to say something about
someone, do I say something positive or negative? These types of questions are
just the tip of the iceberg of questions I face every day. Each day I answer
them, sometimes in ways glorifying You Father, but sometimes in ways only glorifying
me, and even worse sometimes in ways pointing people towards anything but You.
And so at middle age, I find myself defined by how I answer these daily questions
facing me every day I exist.
How do I face the bombardment of these decisions every day? Maybe
by starting each day in Your Word. Maybe by praying Your will for that day is
done in my life. Maybe by trying to listen to those quiet thoughts when You
speak to me in the still silence of morning before the days distractions take
hold. Maybe by asking Your Spirit within to intercede on my behalf. Indeed,
maybe some of all this. Otherwise how do I stand a chance against the
principalities of darkness, or the illusion of the world, or my own selfish
tendencies?
Crossing the threshold in becoming a man is a clear realization
that as a man, we are nothing apart from You. Instead we are only a shell, and
a shell that may or may not be good at presenting a front to others. Is this
not what the Preacher came to realize at the end of Ecclesiastes? There is no
front before God. Yes, man’s all is in God, because every decision I make will
come before my Maker in the end, including as the Preacher said…”every secret
thing, whether good or evil.” I pause to reflect on this.
And then I go straight into reading the Book of John. I am amazed
at how close Ecclesiastes and the Book of John relate to one another. When
reading Ecclesiastes and then immediately reading John, I find an almost seamless
flow from the Old to New Testament. And I also find hope.
Jesus washed all my stains.
