Growing Young

"I've gone so far from my home; I've seen the world and I have known so many secrets I wish now I did not know .'Cause they have crept into my heart. They have left it cold and dark and bleeding; bleeding and falling apart. Everybody used to tell me big boys don't cry, but I've been around enough to know that that was the lie that held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons. Well, we are children no more; we have sinned and grown old, and our Father still waits and He watches down the road to see the crying boys come running back to His arms and be growing young. Growing young. 
I've seen silver turn to dross: seen the very best there ever was, and I'll tell you it ain't worth what it costs. I remember my father's house…what I wouldn't give right now just to see him and hear him tell me that he loves me so much.  Everybody used to tell me big boys don't cry, but I've been around enough to know that that was the lie that held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons. Well, we are children no more; we have sinned and grown old, and our Father still waits and He watches down the road to see the crying boys come running back to His arms. When I thought that I was all alone, it was your voice I heard calling me back home and I wonder, now, Lord, what it was that made me wait so long?  What kept You waiting for me all that time? Was Your love stronger than my foolish pride? Will You take me back, now? Take me back and let me be Your child ‘cause I've been broken, now; I've been saved. I've learned to cry, and I've learned how to pray, and I'm learning. I'm learning even I can be changed…Growing young."

I’ve been thinking, lately: this is a season of change.  This is not the first such season we have had; as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.  What has been will be, again.”  In my heart, I feel a certain heaviness even as I look with joy to all God is doing in His people and around the world.  I see Him waiting with arms wide open to hold us close, and dry each tear, and whisper His gentle promises.  The heaviness I feel are all those things which keep us back from those places God longs to take us.  He longs to give us rest, and peace, and freedom, but our own ideas about what’s required of us holds us to a time of fear, or failure, or striving to have everything “just so.”  We either shy away from greatness—convinced that we will eventually fall, or we accept a role of leadership which takes us deeper and deeper into needing to never fail.  In all of that, I see men and women of destiny hiding their tears from the rest of the world; I see them struggle on their own; I see lights flickering on brightly and then dimming out with a desperate last cry.  As David said, “How the mighty have fallen in Israel!”

In Saul’s day, Saul was never convinced that he could be king.  He hid from responsibility when God called him to come forward and lead, and then ran away from God’s instructions in order to do things a “better” way (in his mind) out of insecurity and fear.  That same fear of failure which motivated Saul to hide when Samuel came to anoint Saul to be king is the same fear that caused Saul to hold back the spoils of war in a display of “greatness” and then hide from what he had done.  How many leaders run from vulnerability; from transparency; away from leading out of a broken dependence upon the Lord?  How many run into places of striving; of perfectionism; of fear of failure; of needing everything to be “bigger”; “greater”; “faster”; “better”?  Even holiness, and private study, and individual prayer then become a means of “pushing” themselves into perfectionism, and less and less a place of rest where they can just “be” and by His love be set free.  What we do does not make us who we are; what we do flows out of a place of what is already inside of us.

I weep for Robin Williams who entertained the world but never found anyone who could give him answers or dry his tears; I weep for Whitney Houston who sang of Jesus, and rescuing love, but never felt “at home” enough to let her guard down and let love save her; I weep for their loneliness; I weep for lights gone out.  I weep for John Lennon who asked missionaries in Asia, “What is truth?” and that they were so blinded by his stardom, they felt they couldn’t help.  I weep for Christian leaders struggling to keep standing and all the while dealing with private sin and pain, but unable to reach for help for fear it will make them “weaker”: I weep for those who make the struggle their identity, and out of fear of not being able to change, adopt a stance of, “This is how I am, and God loves me, so deal with it.”  I weep for both extremes, and for the sheep in the middle with no shepherd while Jesus stands weeping ready to gather them into His arms and make them His.

David cried out when his brothers accused him at “playing” at being a soldier before the threats of Goliath, “What have I done?  Is there not a cause (a reason to speak up)?”  Around the world, babies are dying; young men and women are sold into slavery or enticed by drugs or prostitution; compromise begins in the small things with what we put on T.V. or listen to in our headsets to “check out” from the pain.  The words we allow ourselves to say (spilling over from the pain or anger in our hearts); the distance we put between ourselves and those who love us; the opinions we allow to rule us as if those same opinions are God: all these things are nothing new.  Jesus rebuked the Pharisees saying, “You search (anxiously poring over and memorizing) the Scriptures, because you think they give life and it is they which testify of Me!”  In other words, we can do all the right things and never know His peace and rest; we can force ourselves to “measure up”; we can pore over His Word without letting that same Word breathe life into our relationship with Him and from there into the relationships around us. 

So, how do we know if we truly know Him or are just seeking to know about Him; how can we tell if we are only His servants, or if we’ve let ourselves become “sons”?  The answer is in the following questions: How much do we say, “I have to do more”; “I have to get into His Presence”; “I have to put Him first,” and how do we say, “Jesus I choose You.  Thank You for helping me grow.  Thank You for what You’re doing in me.  Thank You for what You’ve already done.  Thank You that Your Presence is always with me; help me make time to stop and see how much You’re already there.”

There is a place of rest in Him—a place where we stop striving.  In that place, we do even more than we did before; we see greater fruit than we’ve ever known.  But it is all coming out of a relationship with Him; growing as babies grow by leaning on their mother’s chest.  Each baby (in a “perfect” world) learns to talk, and crawl, and walk, and eat, and sleep, and then work, and play, and grow, and dream.  May we never be too big to cry as those babies do, but may we never try to hold in the place of “remaining” a child out of fear of growing, and possibly stumbling.  He will catch us; He will teach us; He will lead us, but we must keep moving forward, and have the courage to say, “Jesus (not my works; not my pride; not my greatness; not my relationships, or ministry, or reputatation, or success), JESUS is all I need.”