Quality of the Man – Maturity

We approach the end of the month and the end of a series I’ve been doing recently based on a certain someone who’s identity will be revealed very shortly.  So I considered initially the quality of sustainability and then looked at consistency.  Creativity was explored whilst responsibility was also investigated briefly.  There is a concept that takes all of this together that’s worth checking in summation of some of the qualities of the man especially in the light of Christ.

Maturity: I read the wrong brochure.  I read the one where being an adult was about having money and being able to do stuff that you couldn’t do as a child because your parents said only grown-ups did that sort of stuff, like drink certain things, stay up after a particular time and big things like that.  I thought being an adult was all about doing your own thing and being answerable to yourself and being able to enjoy life exactly as you wanted to.  That’s the brochure I read.  It was the wrong brochure.

It’s not my parents’ fault, they never gave me that brochure.  In fact if I bothered to read the brochure they were giving me, I’d have found out that I had the wrong brochure.  One of the paradoxes of this brochure business though is that although they live out what the grown up business is meant to be about, you’d rather forsake their brochure in favour of someone else’s, unless of course your parents did a grand job in selling you their brochure.

In any case, having read the wrong brochure and discovering that I’d read the wrong one after I’d tried the adult business for a year or three, I sought the right brochure, but got another mixed up one.  This one talked about getting a ‘good’ job, paying your bills on time, wearing a tie to church because God loves that and while you’re there bring a briefcase to church as well (don’t worry about having stuff in it, just bring it and look the part), follow what your tradition tells you, don’t ask questions or don’t ask it with any hope of a satisfactory answer, get married, have children, buy a house (yeah, we know you’re not buying it, you’re just chaining yourself up for years of debt as you pay off the bank, but at least look like you’ve taken a step on the property ladder), accept and conform and you’ll be fine.

The scary thing is that brochure is better than the last one and if you’re not careful you’d get the impression that’s the right brochure.  That’s where I was going anyway.  I had the tie, I coveted earnestly my father’s second briefcase (my sister got his first one … yeah, she’s not a bloke, but such was her power and her position as Daddy’s favourite that she deliberately stymied my rite of passage to manhood by this devastating act, I’m over it now, and the therapist with a couple more years’ worth of sessions I should be good to be reinstated into society).  So I had the tie, the briefcase (I even had books in the briefcase as well, cos I read you see), I got the wife, I got the children, we even went about looking for the house and everything.  So surely I was grown up now, surely I’d made it, surely this was it!!

Guess what, wrong brochure again.

At the moment I think I got the right brochure, and that’s not to say I’ve bought the product wholesale, but there is something about it that suggests it’s the right one.  What indicates this is that it’s centred on the Kingdom and is about growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.  It’s about developing character through life’s circumstances so as to be able to withstand the bad and embrace the good not succumbing to the extremes of either and keeping focus on the prize which is the author and finisher of my faith.

That could mean getting married, but that’s not essential.  That could include having children, but that’s not essential.  That could include getting what is perceived by others as a ‘good’ job, but that’s not essential.  That could involve wearing a tie and taking a briefcase to church, but thanks be to God that is not essential at all.

What is essential is the awareness that this consistent, sustainable, creative, responsible approach to life is essentially Christ-centred, gospel-driven, kingdom-bound.  It’s values are earthed out from heavenly directives with a completion and out-working seen somewhere beyond this existence.  I know this doesn’t please those who believe in Kingdom now and we bring it in in the here and now and its established by our peace-making efforts.  That’s not how I read the narrative outline of the New Testament.  In fact I’d be a bit concerned if that was the way to read it.

What I do read, however, is that those worthy of being called the children of the most-high are not marked by being married, with children, a good job and a house whilst wearing a tie and briefcase to church.  Nor are they marked by their supreme efforts to install political, social, economic and cultural transformation by their entrepreneurial endeavours.  As I read it children of God are marked by His character that can be seen in the Son.  That is the key hallmark of maturity and is what makes the quest to attain that maturity of manhood, something that Jesus attained at the completion of his ministry, something worth aspiring to at whatever age.

Whilst we are prodded by worldly forces to follow the almighty pound-sign or the apparent admiration and acclamation of others, it is actually getting on with our own business – the one given by God, identifying it, pursuing it, exploring it, maximising its use for the benefit of you and others and as a result being able to pass those principles to others to learn likewise.

It was not those flashy temporal flashy acclaim moments that motivated Jesus in His life’s journey, but clearly following His Father’s call in a responsible manner establishing things that would last because of his consistent approach that exposed the integrity that underpinned the creative work he was called to do.  He also highlights how maturity is not an issue of age, but a mind-set dedicated to pursuing the path of wisdom as set out by the loving Father.

So whilst there have been many who outline certain characteristics that are admirable, there is only one who is the ultimate hero for me, and one whose example I so desperately want to follow. That would be quality.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd