Original Entry:
December 4, 2011
McMinnville, OR
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. 1Corinthians 13:11
As a running back
coach last year my job was to make our running backs better. One way we
attempted this was to teach them three moves; the ski, the spin, and the
crossover rip. Our starting back was the offensive player of the year as a
junior, which was impressive since we took fourth in our league and ended with
a 5-5 season. As great of a back as he was the one move he could never master
was the crossover.
We see the same issue
with men today. How does a boy know when he has crossed over into manhood? What
is a man? What does a man look
like?
I have asked these
and other questions about manhood hundreds of times.
Manhood is not
chronological. It is much deeper than a
time line, facial hair, or the ability to fight and die for one’s country. It is about talking, thinking and living like
a man.
A man is as a man
does.
My crossing into
manhood occurred at a Promise Keepers Convention in Los Angeles in 1995. Up to
that point our marriage had struggled, limping along by my selfishness for
almost three years. After hearing a black preacher scream over and over,
“You’ve got to out love and out serve your wife!” I finally got it. In that
stadium I decided to out love and out serve Shanna for the rest of my life.
I crossed over from boyhood
to manhood. I was thirty years old! A
man is as a man does.
Paul ends this great
chapter on love with his words to men, “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.” .
First, a man talks
like a man. He does not reciprocate word
for word with other boys but listens to the words spoken to or against
him. He does not engage in gossip,
slander or maliciousness. He knows he is
accountable (Matthew 12:34-36) and
chooses his words wisely.
Second, he thinks
like a man. He guards his mind (Phil
4:6-8) and tests anything he watches, listens to, or reads. He knows that he is only as strong as his
mind and guards it diligently.
Third, he reasons
like a man. A boy measures life by “my”
for “my” and an eye for an eye. A boy
lives in the here and now, unable to process the big picture. To reason like a man is to play the movie to
end, to read the last page so to speak. As Steven Covey States in his book, The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People it is to see the end of our actions at
the beginning.
