Hey Brother,
Are you a young man with an old soul? Are you an old man young at heart? It seems like there is always a constant battle between who we feel we are and the way the world perceives us. Let’s be honest; there’s even an internal battle in how we see ourselves.
When we’re teenagers, we’re always striving to show how “adult” we really are. As we grow older, many of us clamber to hold on to the last strands of our youth. What’s a midlife crisis after all, but a desperate attempt to reclaim your youth with sports cars and games of trampoline dodgeball (trust me, it’s a thing, and it’s awesome!).
In the Bible, Titus 2 discusses how Christian men and women should behave. It specifically gives different instructions to older members of the Church than it does to the younger members. For men, verse 2 tells the older men to be “sober, grave [reverent], temperate, sound in faith, in charity [love], in patience.” Young men should be taught to be “sober minded” (Titus 2:6), which many interpret as being clear-minded or self-controlled. For women, it’s even more specific.
But what about those of us who are right in the middle? We aren’t really young anymore and we aren’t really old yet, either. What do we do?
What about spiritually? Spiritually, our age has almost nothing to do with our maturity. There are young men who have been in the faith for many years, and there are old men who are brand new to the faith.
My wife and I were reading Titus 2 together, and we each had very different responses to the material. I read it and took a look at myself to see if I was meeting the standards set for the “older man.” My wife, on the other hand, read it and wished there were older women in her life to teach her, a “younger woman” (as verses 4-5 command them to do).
You see, the church we attend is, for the most part, made up of people in their 30s. My wife missed having the wisdom that older Christian women could teach. I looked at her and said, “Well, maybe you are the older woman.”
Needless to say, the look she gave me took a few years off my life. I’m now older and wiser after making that statement.
I quickly explained that throughout our lives we will often find ourselves being the “young one” in the group and other times we will be the “old one.” No matter what age we are, there are people younger in the faith whom we can teach, and there are those older in the faith whom we can learn from.
Brother, as men, our youthful passions are always there in the back of our minds waiting to pounce, so we should be “sober minded” and self-controlled. At the same time, we should always be pressing forward to meet the standards set for older men. Let’s live our lives as examples that teach those younger than we are, but at the same time be eager to learn from those who are more mature than we are.
Kristopher Galuska
Family Radio Staff
P.S. To all you younger men out there, here is some advice from an “older man.” Telling your wife that she is the “older woman” is not wise. Don’t do that. Okay? Great.