Recently the Lord spoke this to me, “You are now a man.” I knew what He was getting at when I first heard it, but it’s kind of a funny thing to say. I remember is high school my teenage friends would joke about being tough by saying things like, “I’M A MAN!” Or I could think of the awkwardness of puberty talks, and the process of not being a boy any more and becoming a man. There are also significant moments like turning 18, where legally you are seen differently. Or there is also turning 21 and/or graduating college. Or I could reflect on a couple years ago when I got married, and I entered the working world. All these moments can define bits and nuggets of manhood.
From my experience in life these are some of the significant moments that can be quantified: Turning 18 or getting your first paycheck, or signing your first apartment lease, all these things are signposts of moments in becoming your own. They can be seen outwardly, you can maybe even have paper certificates. I have an observation though, and it is this, that many people grow old, but never become a man (or woman). It sounds weird to say it that way, but that’s the way I know how to describe it, and that’s the way the Lord decided to describe it to me as well.
There are people who have grandchildren. They could even be retired, but have not yet become men. I am not saying this to cast a judgement (that’s not my job; it’s God’s) but rather to explain what I have been processing, and what I see God doing not just in me but many others as well.
Use Abraham for example. He was called by God to go to a foreign land, leave his parents, uncles, cousins, and everything else he knew as was familiar with. He went on a journey, he waited on God to fulfill the promise he had been given. And by the time he was 99 years old God changed his name from Abram to Abraham. He had been chewed up and spit out, lost some people along the way, and here he is before God, and God changed his name, made him new. He had become a man. He was 99 years old, and there was all of a sudden a new name, a new authority given to Him by God.
Jacob, after his scheming, stealing a birthright from his own brother, being tricked himself by his father-in-law, and coming to and going from a foreign land, he wrestles with God, and God gives him a new name – Israel. From that moment Jacob changed, he was able to bless instead of scheme. He walked in a newness. He was his own man.
If you look at other biblical figures, they go through a process of becoming their own. It is at various ages. The process was sometimes long and late (like Abraham) or the process is quick and early (see the life of Jeremiah or Daniel).
Jesus even went through a process like this. When He was young, the Gospels note that He grew in wisdom, but when you read about Jesus going through the wilderness and the differences of how He addressed His mother at the wedding in Cana, there is an apparent shift. When Jesus began His public ministry, He walked in an authority from His Father, and a newness of who He was that was evident. While in His thirties, He became His own. In a kingdom perspective, He became a man.
Sarah and I now find ourselves at home for right now. We have found ourselves processing a lot. We have been away from home for about a year. I told her the other day, “I feel like I have been chewed up and spit out.” When I think back when the Lord spoke to me about “being a man,” I got what He said, but now I get it more fully. That was a month ago.
I could compare it to other moments in my life (like getting married, or turning 18, etc…). But here is the difference… There are regular life moments that are still greatly significant, but they happen from the outside first. Then there are kingdom moments. These moments do not happen from the outside, but from the inside first. When God makes you a man, its not about age, vocation or a life transition. It can include those things, but it is fundamentally about God changing something from the inside.
It involves initiation into His kingdom that is beyond the initial welcoming (salvation). It is a new authority, a new walk, a new responsibility as well. You just become your own. You are no longer a child, you are a man.
*FYI When I say “man” it is not gender restrictive (just for the sake of more fluid communication).
