©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

03/21/04

An Adolescent Interlude

3/21/04 An Adolescent Interlude

Before I begin this morning

I need to offer just a few words of explanation.

What I intended to talk about when I began my notes

and what I ended up talking about

are completely different.

Early in my preparation

I used an illustration from my high school years

and somehow the illustration simply took over and ultimately rewrote my entire talk.

This certainly doesn’t trouble me,

but I did think I should let you know

that where I start

and where I end up this morning will have very little in common.

It all started when, after looking over what I shared with you last week

I decided I needed to add just a little more

concerning some of the conclusions I have reached

about God’s goals for my life.

For the past couple of months

I have been sharing with you

some of the things that I consider to be the biggest surprises in my Christian life.

Last week I shared with you

my discovery of God’s goals for my life as His child,

and how those goals differed so drastically

from the ones I’d brought with me into my life with Him.

We spent quite a bit of our time

talking about the role that our goals play in our lives,

about the way in which every one of us lives with a clearly defined set of personal goals,

things we are seeking to accomplish or to obtain,

things that we think will then result in a truly fulfilling life.

Though we may rarely be aware of these goals at the conscious level of our thinking,

still their power over us is so great

that most of our daily conscious choices

are not really choices we make

so much as they are the predetermined outward expressions

of those underlying goals that form the foundation of our lives.

And this goal-driven decision-making process

is active in our lives from the day we’re born.

I’ve become so aware of this process

that now, when I see behavior either in myself or in another person that seems irrational,

I automatically look for the underlying goal

that’s driving the behavior.

Somewhere there is in place

some important life goal that makes the apparently irrational behavior

appear not only logical but essential

when seen in the light of that goal.

I remember, way back in the dark ages,

when I was in High School

one of the big issues especially among the guys in my class

was whether or not to smoke.

Even back then the logical evidence against smoking was overwhelming.

Medically,

financially,

legally,

and, in most settings, socially it was a dumb thing to do.

And then, just as now, the adults in our world

tried hard to communicate these logical truths to our young minds.

But still nearly all of us tried smoking,

and many of my friends stayed with it.

Why in the world did that happen

after the teacher in high school health class went to such extreme lengths

to show us clearly

what a stupid choice it would be?

It happened because there were underlying goals in our lives at that point,

goals that were far more important to us than any health or financial issues,

goals that were dictating our choices for us.

At fourteen, or fifteen, or sixteen years old

what every young man wants

is something, anything that allows him to “feel like a man”,

something that he thinks will give him entrance into the adult world of men.

And here is this one thing

that to the adolescent male mind just screams ADULT!

My locker partner my senior year was a young smoker

and I can remember him educating me on the different brands

and telling me it took a “real man” to smoke this brand or that brand.

And depending on the peer group we were running with,

smoking had the huge additional benefit of bringing instant approval, and acceptance, and admiration from our peers.

With two huge goals like that in place -

the longing to feel like we were a part of the adult male world

and the longing for peer approval and acceptance,

the impact of adult “logic” on our thinking was negligible.

Of course many of the specific goals change as we move through life,

but the big ones such as our need for acceptance from those who matter to us,

and our longing to feel good about ourselves as men and women

continue to exert tremendous pressure on us all the way through life.

This is getting way off track here,

but I can’t resist the urge to offer just one comment

for those of you who have children in their early teens

or for those of you who work with children at that age.

One of the most powerful gifts you can ever give a child at this age

is your permission for them to enter the adult world.

A little of this is done through our words,

but most of it is done through our actions and attitudes.

One of the many tragic flaws in our modern culture

is the absence of any clear point at which society as a whole

recognizes a child’s transition into the adult world,

and especially where a child sees his or her parents accepting them as an adult.

Though children could never put this into words,

as soon as they enter early adolescence

their mental and emotional sensors lock onto the significant adults in their world,

and especially onto their dad,

and they start looking for anything that appears as though they are being given permission to enter the adult world.

And of course the trap in this whole thing

is that the very age when they need that affirmation from us the most

is also the age at which they are driving us absolutely crazy

and the age at which we see them as least qualified to receive it.

I find it fascinating that there is a brief window of opportunity in a child’s life during adolescence

when we can communicate to a child our permission for them to enter the adult world.

If that permission is granted by us

and received by the child,

something huge relaxes inside them

freeing them to continue their growth and development as they should.

But if that window passes

and the message is not given,

the child will move into his or her adult years

carrying an insecurity

that will drive them into a life-long search for anything that will help them prove themselves in the adult world.

Real men don’t eat quiche...

real women don’t pump their own gas...

The way we go about communicating that message of acceptance and affirmation

must be matched both to the individual child

and to our own communication style,

but one thing is certain -

it can only be done through one-to-one communication.

It can’t be done in a group,

it can’t be done through group family activities,

or simply through having the child grow up in your home.

When our daughter, Joni, was at that point in her life

I took a bunch of pictures from her early childhood

and put them together into a book about a little girl I called “Piggies In The Wind”.

I wrote up fun little captions for the pictures,

describing all the antics of this adventurous little girl,

and then on the last page I put her most recent school picture,

I think it was from the 7^th grade,

with this concluding statement.

“...In some ways things have changed a great deal since those early days. The piggies in the wind are now just a memory...and in their place has grown a beautiful young lady. But in many ways things have not changed nearly as much as it might seem. For the young lady she has become still possesses all of those wonderful qualities that made Piggies in the Wind such a blessing to this world. She has that same adventurous enthusiasm in her outlook on life; she brings to every job a determination, courage, and commitment that carries her through until the task is well completed; she possesses even a deeper measure of that amazing sensitivity and love for those who are hurting, or weak, or afraid; and her radiant, bubbly, inner joy brings a special kind of light into the world around her. We shall forever thank our Lord for Piggies in the Wind, and even more, for the person she has become. The end.”

When she left for college in the fall of 1998

I noticed that “Piggies In The Wind” went with her,

and when we were in Matt and Joni’s home in California last fall

I saw that it still holds a prominent place on the bookshelf in their livingroom.

There is no “right” way to communicate the message.

The important thing

is for us to be aware of the questions our children are really asking us

under all of that turmoil and adolescent chaos we see on the surface,

and then most of all we need to risk trying to communicate the answers we want them to hear.

I’m obviously getting way off track from where I said I was going this morning,

but I have sometimes thought

that an adult’s relationship with an adolescent

is one of the best parallels we will ever have

to God’s relationship with us.

Here we are, our lives filled with fears,

and doubts,

and failures,

and confusion,

and even with willful rebellion at times,

and then our God speaks to us through His Word,

and how does He begin those conversations?

In every one of the New Testament Epistles

He begins by telling us,

“You are my holy ones...my saints on this earth.”

Over and over again He affirms to us

that we are His precious possessions.

PSA 16:3 As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.

And we hear His words and respond,

“Pardon me, Lord, but Billy Graham isn’t in the room right now.”

When I was writing The Fisherman

I used it as a means through which I could put into words

so many of the thoughts and emotions that have been a part of my own Christian life.

There is one point in the book at which the Lord is calling His 12 disciples for the first time.

One of the men in the crowd that day

was a relative newcomer to the group,

a man who very likely at that point had not even one friend in the crowd,

a man who, years before, had sold himself out to the hated Roman rulers

and taken up the position as the Jewish tax collector for Rome.

His name was Matthew,

and just a few days earlier

Jesus had stepped into his tax office

and asked Matthew to walk away from all of his considerable wealth and follow Him.

Then, in the scene in which Jesus is calling His disciples by name

I pictured it like this.

The first six names he called came as no surprise to me. “Simon, Andrew, James, John, Nathanael, and Philip, will you join me up here?” We’d all been with the Master from the beginning. Our commitment to him and his to us was certain. The seventh name he spoke, however, took the crowd by surprise. “I would also like you, Matthew, to join me.” No one was more surprised to hear his name than Matthew himself. He was sitting at the very back of the crowd, his eyes fixed not on Jesus but on the ground in front of him. When he heard his name spoken, he looked up, then looked around him, apparently curious to see the man who shared his name—the faithful, obedient, devout Matthew who had just been selected for this great honor. But when no one else stirred, Matthew looked at the Master. To his amazement, Matthew saw that Jesus, and indeed most of the rest of the crowd, was looking at him. For a moment he just sat there, his mouth hanging open in disbelief...when he finally reached the six of us standing next to Jesus, he stood a few feet away. I looked over at him, saw the amazement and insecurity in his eyes, and in a rare moment of selfless compassion reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder. That was the first time I ever saw him smile. He took a step closer to the group and said, “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe he chose me.” Silent tears were streaming down his cheeks.

And when we hear our Lord saying, “My holy ones...”,

talking to us about the way in which He delights in our presence with Him,

I think many of us, just like Matthew, raise our heads

and look around us for the faithful, obedient, devout person who shares our name,

the one the Lord must surely have been talking to.

And when we suddenly realize

that He is looking directly at us,

and sense that He is smiling at us,

and discover that He is really calling us His holy ones,

we don’t know what to do with it.

And yet that is exactly what’s happening

because God never talks to our flesh,

He never identifies us as being our flesh,

He always talks to our spirits, telling us the truth about who we are at the spirit level,

and because of the cleansing and redeeming work of Christ in our lives

our spirits are now holy, and pure, and sinless forever.

And if we listen long enough

and close enough

and often enough to His voice

eventually we begin to believe what He’s saying...sort of...a little bit.

And the more we believe it,

the more we will find our actions

and our attitudes conforming to that truth.

A couple of weeks ago

when I was sharing with you the true nature of righteousness,

one of the characteristics of true righteousness I shared with you was this -

true righteousness is not reaching the point where we say,

“I will not do that because it is wrong.”,

true righteousness is reaching the point where we say,

“I will not do that because it is not who I am.”

If you ask the infant Christian, “Who are you?”

he will respond, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace”.

And that’s great stuff,

that’s a great place to begin our walk with the King.

But if you ask the mature Christian the same question

he will respond, “I’m the holy one of God, His ambassador on this earth, His dwelling place, His child.”

And here is the parallel I wanted to point out.

When our God talks with us

He doesn’t begin the conversation

by pointing out all of our confusion,

and our failures,

and our ignorance,

and our fears,

and our sins.

He begins the conversation by speaking directly to our spirits,

to our true identities, calling us, “My holy ones...”

Then He goes on to remind us

of all that we have

and all that we are in Him.

Do you remember what we saw in those opening verses of Ephesians?

EPH 1:2-6 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

And if we took the time

we would see Him taking the same approach

in every one of the letters He’s written to us in the New Testament.

In other words,

He doesn’t begin by speaking to our external actions,

He begins by speaking to our inner selves,

to our spirits,

telling us the good He sees there.

And it is exactly that same pattern

that is so powerful in our dealings with adolescents.

To do what needs to be done in their lives,

there must be points at which we see beyond all of the surface tension,

and confusion,

and ignorance,

and childish irresponsibility

and find ways of telling them the tremendous good that exists within them.

“I see you growing into a man who possesses remarkable courage,

a person of great compassion and kindness.”

“I see in you a young lady who possesses an inner spirit of great beauty.

I believe you will be used by your Lord

to accomplish great healing in the lives of those He places into your hands in the years ahead.”

And some of you are thinking,

“Yea, but what if I don’t see those things in my child?”

If you don’t see it,

then you’re probably looking in the wrong place.

Don’t look at the way they keep their room.

Don’t open their locker at school.

Start by looking at those places where you have seen them choose right

when it would have been so much easier for them to choose wrong.

I believe there is a tragic error present within the Christian community when it comes to parenting,

an error in which we parents begin thinking

that because we are Christians

we have some God-given right to have “good kids”.

There is only one way for any teenager in our society

to maintain a life that reflects a measure moral integrity

and that’s by their choosing to exercise tremendous personal courage

in the face of powerful forces working to corrupt them.

I watch the young people in our congregation closely,

and whenever I can

I try to at least offer them my friendship,

and I’ll tell you,

what I see in the lives of those I get near thrills me.

I see young people who are standing strong against forces

that I know would have destroyed me

if would have had to face them when I was their age.

And if we cannot see the strength of character in our kids,

sometimes we need to stop looking so closely under the beds

and look more closely into their hearts.

And I think sometimes we miss the good in them

because we misinterpret what we see.

Nearly 20 years ago now

I had an opportunity to build a friendship with a boy in Jr. High School.

A couple times a month

he and I would take off with my little Ruger .22

and we’d go target shooting.

But then one day my young friend decided

that he just really wanted to shoot something besides targets and bottles

so we went out in the woods behind my house

to see if we could find a squirrel.

It wasn’t long before we found one,

busy about his squirrel duties high up in a spruce tree.

My young friend saw him,

took aim,

and shot,

hitting the squirrel in the back.

We both stood there

watching as the little creature feel about thirty feet to the base of the tree.

The shot must have severed the squirrel’s spinal cord

because he could not move his back legs,

but he was still very much alive

and very much in pain.

I told my friend that we couldn’t let him suffer

and he would have to shoot it again.

Then I looked at my friend

and saw tears streaming down his cheeks

as he looked at this tiny suffering creature at his feet.

There was no way he could bring himself to shoot the squirrel again,

so I took the .22 and put the thing out of it’s misery.

Then he and I walked back to my house.

As soon as we got inside the boy started sobbing.

So what do you say in a situation like that?

Do you tell the boy to “suck it up and be a man!”?

Do you tell him he’s just being a baby

and you’re really disappointed that he wimped out and wouldn’t finish “the kill”?

Or do you look at what’s really going on inside him

and see there those remarkable qualities of empathy and deep compassion

that were causing the pain he felt?

He and I talked for a long time following our hunt.

We talked about a lot of things,

but one of the things I wanted to be certain he knew

was that not only was the pain and sadness he felt not a sign of weakness,

it was actually evidence of great strength within him.

Weak men,

insecure men hide from the pain they see around them

because they are afraid to allow themselves feel it

and reach out and try to bring healing.

Only a very strong man

can see another creature’s or another person’s suffering

and then allow himself to feel that pain and try to help.

I didn’t mention this to my young friend at the time,

but that, of course, is exactly what the ultimate source of all strength, God Himself,

did for us.

ISA 53:3-5 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

That is ultimate strength

using that strength

to reach out to our deepest suffering

and bring us healing.

Do you think taking that kind of an approach with a boy

will make the kid weak

or turn him into a wimp?

Do you know what that kid does now?

He flies fighter jets for the U.S. Marines.

I’ve sometimes thought he almost seems to thrive on hardship and abuse,

and yet he’s never lost that remarkable sensitive spirit within him.

And he still calls me about once a month.

In fact, he called once again just this past week,

and in that conversation I asked him if he remembered that day.

He said he remembered it vividly,

and most of all he remembered never feeling condemned or criticized for his pain and his tears.

Well, I guess most of all what I wanted to say with all of this

is that the goal for us

is that we should seek to relate to our children

the way God does to His.

And with Him,

the first thing He does

is to look past our flesh exteriors into our spirits

and tell us the truth about the good He sees there.

And then just one final comment especially to the men.

I know some of you may be thinking,

“Well! No one ever said anything to me when I was growing up,

and I made it through OK.”

And that’s probably true.

But just imagine what it would have been like

if someone would have said something to you,

if someone would have looked inside you

and seen there courage,

or kindness,

or compassion,

or strong moral character.

And what if they would have told you what they had seen.

Would it have made it easier for you?

Would it have made a difference?