Crapless

6.26.2010

2 Timothy 2.22 22 So flee youthful passions... ESV

My Bible reading guide for today led me to Jonah and then to 2 Timothy. In both portions of the Scripture I noticed the word flee. Jonah decided to flee from the Lord when God told him to go to Nineveh and preach repentance; and Paul told Timothy to flee youthful passions in order to be more effective as a mature preacher and teacher of God’s word.

Perhaps it was youthful passions that caused Jonah to flee from God’s command. Perhaps Jonah was all hyped up on arrogance, anger, revenge, and prejudice, and the thought of going to the Ninevites to offer them salvation was more than he could bear. Perhaps Timothy had a tendency to get caught up in matters of the heart that would hamper his presentation of God’s word – repeatedly Paul brings up the issue of wrangling over words (1 Timothy 6.4; 2 Timothy 2.14 &c).

Youthfulness tends to be defensive and defensiveness tends to alienate people who are older, knowledgeable, and more experienced in life. Youthfulness is often argumentative, hot-headed, and arrogant. Youthfulness often lacks humility. Youthfulness, by age and stage, has not grown-up; life hasn’t yet had a chance to temper youth’s temper and kick the crap out him. The crap-less are worth listening to because God has enabled them to be a resource to others by the wisdom gleaned from the trials and troubles of their experience. Hopefully they learned and their youthful passions were put to rest…

Father in Heaven,

I am grateful this day for the crap getting kicked out of me by the trials and troubles of my life. I am grateful that You’ve done the kicking; and I’m grateful that I am now finally beginning to learn. I pray that I would be a resource to others and would continue to learn to grow up that I may be more useful as these days go by. May I continue to flee youthful passions, and be a godly man as I serve You and share Your Gospel – in Jesus’ Name, amen.