1977 Was a Great Year to Be a Kid

What are the words that describe who we are? What are those words that describe who we were created to be and cause our hearts to burn whenever we hear them said out loud?  Think about words like courageous, powerful, and tough.  Think about names like Hercules, St Patrick, and John Wayne.  And what about nicknames like tiger, doctor, and the boss.

These words can fuel and drive us.  I get a rush every time someone from our town calls me “Coach.”  I have been coaching soccer teams for many years now; and to be recognized for that gives me a great ego boost.  I feel a lot of pride as well when I see my former players excel at the High School.  So being named “Coach” holds a lot of power over my life.  It attaches me to my community and connects me to the people around me who I care about.

But these same words can also cause us great shame and guilt.  I may be a good soccer coach, but I still have my bad days.  I can still get mad at my players when they goof off in practice and yell at them.  And when those moments of failure come, I don’t like being known as “Coach”. 

The world will also seek to name us for good and evil purposes.  Names are used to build up; but names are also used to tear us down.  And the world can be so cruel when it lashes out.  They see things in us they don’t like and they will twist and turn them to condemn us.

And don’t forget we have an enemy who will use everything in our lives he can to separate us from God.  That’s the rub isn't it?  We have three major powers working against us trying to keep us from being the man we were created to be. 

Deep inside our hearts is written the origins of creation.  The same Creator, who breathed life into the world, breathed life into us.  And we were created to live in Eden, a place of spectacular wonder.  We not only bore the image of our Creator, but we shared life together with Him.

Consider the number Pi.  Most of us know it as 3.14, but some may know it as the string of numbers it is.  Never repeating this string of numbers goes on and on.  My son Gabe can recite Pi out to the 42^nd decimal.  It is an amazing little trick, but he practices and he is really great with numbers to begin with.  Scientist using computers have taken the number out into the trillions without finding any repeating sequences.

Did you know that in the number Pi is every phone number, every social security number, and every birthday?  Every number that could define us is hidden in that simple number we know as 3.14.  And just like this number, that only the Creator could fully know and understand, in your heart has been written an amazing code that makes you unique and special.

From the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verses 26 through 31:

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’  And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.  Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food’, and it was so.  Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.  So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

We were created to share in the growth and building of the earth.  We were not designed to destroy; we were designed to bring increase.  That is the joy of Eden.  God and Man sharing in the creation process together.  That is our joy as well; God and us creating a beautiful world full of wonder and grace.

I was seven years old in 1977.  What a great time to be a kid.  Our world was changing and excitement filled our days.  Sure the adults at that time were facing all sorts of evil and horrors in the world, but we didn't know.  We were riding bikes and playing “Kick the Can.”  Star Wars came to the theaters and I still can remember the goose bumps I felt then as I watched the opening crawl scroll down the screen.  Later the film titled “A New Hope” was not just a title for the movie, but it was the call to me and my friends.  Our world would never be the same.  We had hope for our world and our future.

I lived and breathed everything Star Wars.  Over the next six years I followed Luke Skywalker’s journey to manhood.  I watched him struggle to find his Man Card.  And ever since then, I have been walking a path similar to his.  Although, some days I feel more like I am walking the path that Darth Vader was on.

So much of my life I thought that the way to get my Man Card was to prove myself worthy by acting like a hero in desperate times.  But the truth is that I am not a Jedi Knight; I am just a kid from Missouri.  And I don’t always do great things in the desperate times.  I make mistakes and I fail.  I struggle, as you do, with being a man in this world.

I have seen hundreds of movies, but the journey of Luke in this series is one I relate to the most.  I can feel the pull of something great out there in the universe.  Calling to me and wooing me to come out from the mundane and to discover the spectacular.  I look at the stars at night and dream of worlds millions of miles away full of wonderful landscapes and people.

I say to you that we can find Eden again.  I think too often we get caught in the science of creation and we loose what is really important.  Honestly too me, I don’t care about evolution versus creation.  How God created the world is not as important too me as why He created the world.  Science will never destroy my Creator; but loosing my connection to the Creator will destroy me. 

I have heard so many times from men saying that they are less than other men because they don’t hunt, fish or drive a truck.  I have heard others proclaim that the only real heroes are military men.  The concept exists in our world that if you don’t look or act like Conan, Rocky, or John Wayne, you aren't a real man.

But, the truth is you don’t have to fish in order to enjoy the power of a river.  You don’t have to hunt to connect with animals or the woods.  You don’t have to climb mountains to experience their majesty.  You don’t have to be an astronaut to know the glory of space.  And you don’t have to be a caveman to know the mesmerizing power of fire.  We cannot allow ourselves to buy into the model of manhood that the world sells us.  Being sensitive and emotional does not make you a woman.  Loving classical music does not mean you are feminine.  Rambo and John Wayne are horrible stereotypes and not the true model for manhood. 

Remember that being a man is not about what you do.  Being a real man is about being connected to the one who created us and living in the purpose He gave us.

As a boy we can experience all of these things because we view the world as something to be explored.  Luke Skywalker longed to explore the stars and space.  And as men we are still called to explore the spectacular wonders around us.  Oh how I long to discover the beauty, the power, the glory, and the wonder around me in this world.  It doesn't matter if I look like the world’s standard for a man.  I feel the power of the Creator when I stand in His storm and embrace the wind and the rain.