Echoes From the Campfire

[Don Adkisson]

      “There are always those who are willing to earn what they get and those who work, being too lazy or immoral to honestly build their own lives.”

                    --B.N. Rundell  (Escape to Exile)

       "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small."

                    --Proverbs 24:10 (NKJV)
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There is a verse tucked away in that wonderful thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians:  "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (13:11, NKJV)  One of the saddest, and perhaps most shameful things in life and more so in the church, is the man or woman who continues to act like a child.  They may have been a Christian for thirty years, but they display the attitudes and actions of a four-year-old.  It ought not to be.
     A couple of my grandkids like to watch "Dude Perfect."  I watched it a couple of times and it seems that they display the symptoms of Peter Pan Syndrome.  I couldn't watch much of it because of its silliness, but then I began to ponder--childishness.  I have a hard time putting up with so-called adults who act like children whether in the workforce or at church.  How many do you know who have this "syndrome"?  
     The definition of the Peter Pan Syndrome is, "never-growing adults who have reached an adult age, but cannot face their adult sensations and responsibilities.  They engage in activities associated with childhood rather than taking on the responsibilities and challenges of adulthood."  Play rather than work.  Work to many of them is a dirty, four-letter word.  Behaviors associated with immaturity and a reluctance to grow up are their forte.  Traits that may be seen are:  avoiding responsibilities, resisting commitment, seeking constant fun and excitement, and displaying a lack of ambition or direction in life.  A dangerous situation, for the individual and the nation, and I believe we are seeing more and more those who display this tendency.
     Paul writes, "That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting." (Ephesians 4:14, NKJV)  When we are born again, we are like little children spiritually.  We then begin to grow, just like children.  Sometimes the growth is gradual and sometimes there are those growth spurts not much different than natural growth.  However, grow we must!
     Do not measure your growth by comparing it to someone else.  Yes, there is common characteristics of growth, but some may reach a mature point in their lives quicker than someone else.  The question to ask yourself is:  "Am I moving away from childish attitudes?  Am I forsaking infantile behavior?  Am I still governed by childish reactions and outbursts?" (Stedman)   And, to shame, there are those who never grow up.  A word of warning:  do not use the phrase that God wants us to be childish.  That is not true.
     The Scripture does exhort us to be childlike at times, but never childish.   Ray Stedman describes it this way, "Childlikeness is that refreshing simplicity of faith which believes God and acts without questioning.  But childishness is described here [Ephesians 4:14] by the apostle as instability and naivete."  Children are fickle; their attention span is short.  They are carried about with fads, fashions, infatuations, and changing circumstances.  They play in dangerous situations, with questionable companions, without knowledge or awareness of the threat.  They will run out into the street without looking or considering what may happen.  Put that in a spiritual context and who comes to mind?  Think of those who hop from church to church, who dabble in the things of the world, who adopt the fashions of the world and its entertainment.  Think of those who are mixed with Belial, those who lack the commitment to marry, those whose tongue is as salty as the devil.
     I had a student ask me one time, "Do you think I am a man?"  I replied simply, "Do you accept responsibility?"  Hmmm, do we take our work seriously?  Do we do all for the glory of God?  Do we do it the best we can, giving quality time for quality work?  Do we live to have fun, or do we live to bear a cross?  Do my work ethics glorify Christ, or do I just get by?  In other words, put away the childish things--become a man/woman of God!

D.C. Adkisson