On Growing Up

I used to think I was a Toys-R-Us kid. I really did. I never wanted to become the gross old man who just sat on his porch yelling at kids like my-then-self to get off his property. What's the charm in that? It's really just crotchety. No thanks. I wanted to be a kid forever - nothing but planes, trains, and video games to worry about. It's a good thing, I think, that as we grow, our sentiments begin to do so as well. If that doesn't happen, well, things can turn pretty dismal. The hours of entertainment, of childhood make-believe, if not properly sorted through upon, inevitably, arriving at adulthood can lead to never growing up. The thing is, time doesn't wait for us - our bodies don't wait for us. We sit around and find new, adult-themed way to entertain ourselves, to make-believe. Some are physically healthier than others, but they all basically stem from an obstinacy rooted in an indelible desire to never grow up.

Tonight, I got a new glimpse of myself. Though I don't sit around and smoke pot and sit in front of the television all night, I may as well. We have this idea, and rightly so, that drugs are bad because they take us out of ourselves and help us forget the day, turning us into a different version of ourselves that perhaps we enjoy more readily. While chemical intoxication doesn't appeal to me, escaping from myself has a particular allure. I do it readily without the help of drugs. How am I any better than my brothers who escape themselves with chemicals? I'm not. For this reason, stoners, alcoholics, addicts of any kind really, don't seem terribly foreign to me. I guess I would rather just collapse into myself like a dying star than go out with a bang, which might be even more dangerous. At least for the addict or drug-user, he can come to the end of himself at some point, realizing that the drugs just don't offer the same high. With the depressive-anxious among us, well, there's really no telling to how low we can sink. It's not hard sink lower and lower, and really, the human heart is infinite and capable of great(terrible) despair.

My isolation from the world, my family, my friends, even, takes me so deep into myself that there's really no telling when I'll reemerge. It's scary for those around me, no doubt. My family, God bless them, when they see this retreat into entertainment, self-destruction, they readily try to offer help, and I, callously, ignore it. My family, the people who want nothing more than to see me flourish and breathe fully the greatness of God's grace, must be utterly baffled that I would shy away from such benevolence, and choose Facebook instead. I have come to be ruled by the things I love wrongly. If I loved them rightly, I would have a full life. If I trusted in God, what a good life I would have! Television and movies would offer a new way of viewing life so that I could reengage while calling on the name of the Lord. Instead, I have come to view them as alternate realities in which I wish I could write for TGS with Tracy Jordan or look like Jim Halpert or fly like Peter Petrelli. Why do I choose these other worlds that don't exist in lieu of the grace, goodness, and love of God the Father through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?

My childish imagination has stayed put, refusing to grow up, continuing to live in a Toys-R-Us world, and I am terrified by the horrible, grim, true, wonderful reality of working and repentance. Is it really such a terrible thing to grow up? How could it be? If I existed in reality and regarded myself properly, I would continue to push myself in that direction, I think. I would understand the beauty of the Lord more fully, I would see the glory of my neighbor, and gladly offer myself to him and them as a sacrifice. What is my time to me? What good is it if I am not offering myself to God and to his Church? Why have I been given this life if I am going to refuse to show up for it?

Growing up is perhaps the most important thing to do. I don't want to grow old in childhood, I want to be there. No wonder Ivan wanted to kill himself upon reaching 30. He understood that life really would just become boring if he himself did not have a dynamic self that grew up as he grew old. How long can I drink from the cup of my broken childhood? Why would I want to? God can't reach me in the past of my childhood, in a faulty imagination. I have to offer it to him as it is, right now. How can I think possibly that sitting around in my room all day is possibly going to lead to my eternal salvation and life in Christ? How can I claim to live in him when I don't even want to claim that I have a self to let live? I die slowly at my keyboard each day and refuse to humble myself before the almighty Christ who bore my flesh nature and hung on the cross with his arms wide calling me to him. No longer. By God's grace, no more! May it not be that I continue to escape his glory. Where can I go to hide from him? The psalmist asked that question centuries ago, and he came to the end of himself realizing that the answer is NOWHERE. There is neither height nor depth that can separate me from him. How can I be so bold to ignore his calling? Who do I think I am? Are my plans to sit around and twiddle my thumbs really all that important? Preposterous thinking! May it never be!

It becomes clear to me, then, that if I continue to hide in my childish wishes to never grow up, then I will err fatally. Christ is the Vine and we are the branches - branches are supposed to grow are they not? If they do not or yield no fruit, are they not, then, dead and consequently severed? Lord, have mercy. I don't want to be a Toys-R-Us thinker, but I want to dwell fully in the presence of God in whom my identity is found. And really, as it has been said, "If he is for us, who can be against us?" Really. Who is there that would dare butt heads with he who vanquished Death? You'd have to be a damn fool to do that.

As we continue to grow up, in body, heart, soul, strength, and mind, doesn't it make sense that God would continue to fill those things even more as well? If my imagination grows up, how much more will God enter that space and make it his? And what joy waits for us, then, as we continue to grow! Lord, have mercy.

Growing up is, though, scary and difficult. Letting go of any habit that you've had for the majority of your life has to be. I'm in the particular habit of hiding from my life, refusing to let God get me where it hurts. As I, however, begin to bring that part of myself before him, he will be good and faithful to kill and resurrect it and make it his and whole. As he enters and confirms my life, he will make me an approved doer of his work, but only if I let him reach all the parts I'm afraid of anyone knowing. But again - where can I hide? How can I think that there may escape from his notice even one part of me, one sin, or one iota of thought? If these things, which are hidden from even me, can be touched by his love, then there is hope for the destruction of the despair that plagues my life. He sets captives free, and I am bound by despair, anxiety, and inability to grow up.

Growing up is necessary, unpleasant work. Lucky for us, however, our God knows something about necessary, unpleasant work. Let's talk for a second about the destruction of Hades, shall we?