From My Son - Thessalongings

My son posted this thoughtful reflection on his.

https://thessalongings.myshopify.com/blogs/encourage-and-admonish/did-you-live-up-to-the-ideals-of-your-younger-self?fbclid=IwAR2BRERIUeKMw8w2KHunzWziqqngCJf4_9pRg-6sIx9XpgOuNN2034QK7lQ


Did you live up to the ideals of your younger self?

I’ve got a long way to go to live up to the adult I thought I would become.
What about you?
I’m a husband who has never strayed, and a dad who loves his kids and tries to spend as much time with them as he can. I pay my taxes, vote (nearly) every election, I have a good relationship with my in-laws and my parent. I semi-regularly help my neighbour out when it snows really bad, and I keep something in the car so I can help out the homeless guy on the corner if I happen to get stopped beside him at the light. Not too shabby, if I say so myself.
If I compare myself against some of the many bad examples the world can give us, I can walk away from that comparison feeling pretty darn good about myself. I don’t do a LOT of bad stuff that I COULD be doing, right? I can compare myself to the classic ‘best people ever’ list like Mother Theresa or Ghandi and fall short, but justify it by pointing out all the differences in our situations. It’s just not possible to live up to that ideal and hold down a regular job and support your family, so I can still walk away holding my head high.
But if I think back to the ideals I held when I was young, what then? If 10 year old me, or 14  or 16 year old me, looked in on my life… well let's be honest. They’d probably just be bored by most of it. But If they could see my thoughts and priorities, what would they say then?
It’s a bit of a silly mental exercise, right? There’s no basis in reality or possibility; the kid version of me had so much to learn about the world before they could possibly understand how naive their expectations were. When we are kids we hold unrealistic ideals… right?
What were your influences back then? I had the typical narrow, naive, rose-coloured view of my parents that kids should have. They, especially my dad, were my heroes. They sent a lot of information and wisdom my way, and I’ll probably get more into that in another post sometime down the road (spoiler - I paid way less attention than I should have then). Today though, I want to talk about one of their tangential gifts. A little indirect, but still probably one of the greatest gifts my parents gave me. Music. I mean, I had guitar lessons, and we sang fairly often, but I never had any great talent for either of those. What I’m talking about is LISTENING to music. They gave me a treasure trove of role models in an endlessly repeatable audio format. Ray Boltz said ‘Thank you for giving to the Lord’, and sang about how our actions, big and small, can have consequences that reach into eternity. He sang about the fact that we can change lives with every action, and encouraged me to find ways to contribute and flex my generosity.
I started listening to Larry Norman when I heard him ask Why the devil should have all the good music. It was intriguing, and opened my eyes to the fact that GOOD music and CHRISTIAN music didn’t need to be two different categories. As I tuned in and kept listening he said “They feared His strength and power so they nailed him to a tree” and commented that “if you think that Jesus is white then you’d be surprised to see his face”. Larry helped me look at the world around me and realize that humanity is really broken. There are slippery slopes and warning signs everywhere but God is reason enough to laugh and dance and sing for Joy. “Let His love be all the love we need to Carry us all the way Home”. And then there was Keith Green. MAN! As a kid born in 1980, I ended up looking back at the 70s and 80s for most of the music I really loved, and Larry had this amazingly diverse style that was honestly a little mesmerizing, but Keith Green was different. Some of Keiths songs sound pretty similar to each other, musically. But his lyrics… when you sit down for a while in a comfy chair or couch and just want some funky piano and intense lyrics, Keith Green is the dude for you. “Well I know the loneliness I felt before is gone now I’ll never feel it anymore.” I was a nerdy kid who struggled to make friends, and Keith assured me that I could rely on Jesus. Every generation has some version of teenage angst, and I was certainly no exception, so when I heard Keith ask “where the bad feelings go when I’m depressed and I get down so low, then I see you coming to me and it’s alright Jesus”, I internalized that and KNEW in my core that no matter how much of a bottomless pit my hormones and emotions made me fall into - the pit was NOT bottomless, and there was in fact a ladder to cling to if I could just open my eyes and grab it. The real FORMATIVE stuff though, came in some of his other songs. As I listened to Larry sing like a minor prophet with warnings about the state of the world, Keith reminded me to “Just keep doing your best and pray that it’s blessed and He’ll take care of the rest.” As Ray was singing about how great it would be to get to heaven and meet all the people we didn’t even realize we’d reached, Keith sang about the Sheep and the Goats and gave an arm-tingling hair-raising warning about the fact that there is in fact a judgment at the end - an amazing musical take on Matthew 25. As I listened to sermons on Sundays and watched the word move slowly but surely towards hell, Keith drew a line in the sand by saying “Jesus rose from the grave and you can’t even get out of bed”.

These songs stuck with me, not because the lyrics were insightful or incisive (which they were), not because the music was catchy (which it was) - but because the message behind them was absorbed into the core of who I wanted to become.
  • Look at the world around you and SEE it
  • Look at the PEOPLE around you and see THEM
  • Notice the opportunities that come along to be selfless or generous
  • It’s totally cool to acknowledge and experience your feelings
  • Never forget that Jesus is always in our corner
  • There is never a ‘secret’ moment - all your actions end up counting… and being counted
  • Step up and ACT. DO something because you can’t have an impact if you don’t get moving.

Now I ask you - measure yourself against that list - do you find yourself as lacking as I do?
If not, please contact me. Either you are an impressive person of faith that I want to know, or you are in need of a lot of prayer and support, and I’d like to help.
So I look back at young me, and at teenage me, and I’m equal parts jealous, glad it’s over, and ashamed at how much I’ve let them down. I’m jealous because there was a clarity of right and wrong that wasn’t conflicted by all the compromises and shades of gray. There’s a lot more wisdom and less close-minded condemnation now too, but I think the ideal is, as usual, somewhere in the middle. I’m glad it’s over because anyone who approaches 40 and seriously wishes they could be a teenager again needs to get their head checked. I’m ashamed of how much I’ve let them down because I’m a husband who has never strayed, but I notice people other than my wife sometimes and I wish I didn’t. I’m a dad who loves his kids and tries to spend as much time with them as he can but I yell at them out of frustration and I stare at my phone and read email when I should be staring at my kids and reading books with them. I pay my taxes, but I don’t tithe enough. I vote (nearly) every election, but that is pretty well where my political involvement ends. Well, that and getting into a really fun debate on Facebook once in a while. I have a good relationship with my in-laws and my parents, but I don’t make NEARLY enough effort to hang out with the rest of my family. I semi-regularly help my neighbour out when it snows really bad, and I keep something in the car so I can help out the homeless guy on the corner if I happen to get stopped beside him at the light, but I can’t remember the last time I invited someone over for lunch when I saw that they were new to our church or our neighbourhood. Pretty shabby, if I say so myself.
What about you?

___________________________
Links:


Keith Green - You put this love in my Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gx8CFgW-QM

Keith Green - He’ll take care of the rest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAe0q21YgTQ

Ray Boltz - Thank you for giving to the Lord
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lVzeS5i8WQ

Keith Green -  The Sheep and the Goats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM3Sousn-Qw

Keith Green - Asleep in the light
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wKsIR5qlss

Inspirations
Matthew 25, James 2

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