Once you were not a people, but now you are the
people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received
mercy. 1 Peter 2:10
The
book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the
trials young men face.
[John] You simply cannot neglect the heart and
get away with it. The mind is a beautiful instrument, one we certainly want to
develop all our lives and not only in the college years. But God gave us the
mind to protect the heart, not usurp it. As Walker Percy said, “You can get all
A’s and still flunk life.”
So
let’s think about identity and the heart for a moment. All men, young or old,
have within them a famished craving for validation. It will not
be denied. We will chase validation wherever we can and we learn pretty quickly
what our world rewards, what it shames, what it cares nothing about. So the
athletes seek validation by being fast, strong, and winning, while the
valedictorians throw themselves into papers, exams, and maintaining their GPAs.
The “spiritual leader” latches on to the praise coming from their giftings, and
they give their hearts and souls over to that dance, while the “cool” kids go
barefoot and wear dreadlocks. We are all looking for the same thing.
When
a young man doesn’t know who he is and what he’s made of, resisting those
“scripts” that are being handed out is about the same as defying gravity.
“Let’s see—I gotta do my laundry, move my car, and oh yeah, I think I’ll fly
today.”
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