Older and wiser

Okay, so I got smart in the last ten seconds of the game and decided not to use drywall on my dad's ceiling. My wife suggested it might be better to do something less time consuming since I didn't have a lot of time to put into the project. So I put a drop ceiling in, and got it done in a day. We actually torn out all the lathe and plaster and cleaned up and put the new ceiling in within 7 hours. And dad was happy. When he tried to pay me, I reminded him of a few of the times he bailed me out, helped me out, or just plain gave me money. In his 79 years of life he must have learned something, because he didn't argue with me from some place of pride. He just said "Oh, I forgot about all those times" and let me do the labor for free.

I notice there is something that shifts inside of me as a man when I actually do something smart, like putting in a drop ceiling rather than a drywall ceiling. There are so few times I actually do smart things that when I stumble on doing one, I step back and take notice. I am far more used to doing stupid things and then asking myself how I got into the dumb places I get into. Making a smart choice to not push myself so hard - to work smarter, not harder - is something I want to do a lot more of in my old age.

Being a wise manager, a wise steward if you will, of what God has given me - that has become my theme of late. And I see more and more people really bad at it. They (we) eat too much, work too hard, don't work hard enough, drink too much, over spiritualize, wait too much for God to do what we should be doing; the list goes on and on. Simply taking what he has given us and doing the best we can with it has become a lost art. We get told so many times - especially in the church environment - that we are bad, and desperately in need of God to fix us. I understand the theology of it all. I just disagree. I think we are born sinful, but through Christ we are made whole again - our hearts are good, and we don't need God to always fix us. What we need is God to direct us to following the heart he has given us and start really living - to the glory of God. The glory of God is a man fully alive.

Most men I know are working hard to stay out of trouble. Few are really pursuing living. They pursue right performance and right living, but lose their hearts and their way in the process. We end up with a lot of nice men without hearts. Safe, but harmless. Saved, but impotent. Secure, but lacking any real purpose and direction in life.

Where are the men ready to launch into something alive, dangerous, unpredicatable, unsafe, and vitally pulsating with the blood of Christ?