I love teenagers. The younger (and crazier) (and hence, newly unstable) the better.
I spent a large part of my career (as middle-school principal) in a sort of virtual pretense of leading them but really learning from them and trying to inspire their teachers to keep coming back each day.
Developmentally, teenagers move from childhood thinking to that of adults, and it couldn't be rockier.
God designed them to argue, to begin to develop confidence in and decision-making skills for themselves.
It is also when they develop their unique ability to selectively hear us, and, when absolutely forced, to hear us with a disdain that we never thought we'd see in the very child who used to cherish our every word.
It is because they know better than the adults in their world.
Okay, got it.
We suffer through collectively as their leaders until they suddenly snap back into some semblance of themselves and decide, in their twenties, that we suddenly awoke from our stupid stupor and moved back into the sensible world.
Teenagers are supposed to hear like...teenagers. God gave us grace (that we forget to tap into) and unconditional love for that child (which on their worst days becomes a distant memory) to bear through these years.
I want to explore how we, as adults, employ teenager hearing when it comes to exploring our place in the world and how and where God fits into it.
How are our responses of today more like that of a teenager, now insufficient and less excusable?
Where does maturity come from? Does God have something to say about maturity?
As long as God is viewing us from His parent state, we might as well face the music. Does He see us as reverting to teenager hearing?
Tomorrow: Does God send messengers?
Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.
