For those of you who didn't know already, this past fall has seen me continue to remain on staff at Camp Highland, though some of my responsibilities have changed. As the majority of our full time staff have been trickling out to take on new jobs and roles in life, the interns have had to step up and fill in the gaps left behind. While this was intimidating at first, it has served to grow us and is continuing to do so in ways we could not have expected.
As a first step toward establishing a tight-knit unit between us, our boss recommended that we read The Dude's Guide to Manhood: Finding True Manliness in a World of Counterfeits, by Darrin Patrick. To be honest, I was skeptical about it. Any book that claims to have the answer to such a broad topic as manliness or success is written from a narrow minded perspective that believes that what works for one person should work for everyone else. At least, that's the bias I hold toward those types of books, whether it's well-founded or not. The fact that the cover of such a book shows a face with a long, unkempt beard and hipster glasses did little to change that bias. In fact, it only discouraged me more from reading it. Why would a scrawny college graduate who still looks like a teenager, who is working at a camp instead of in the typical professional world, who cringes at the click bait titles of every social media trend, want to read a book that tells him how to look and act in order to resemble an image that modern society believes to be "manly"? Why read about how to be something you can't be?
Regardless of my feelings about the book's title and cover, which I think were common among the five of us, we began reading about a month ago. Thankfully, the second and third chapters proved to be fairly instructive and useful. In Chapter Two, Mr. Patrick writes about the obstacles that stands in the way of so many men seeking maturity, the most destructive of which is pride. Humility is a necessary attribute of a godly man because it was one of the most well-recognized traits seen in Jesus. He was called meek, meaning that He had power and every right to take pride in Himself, yet He denied Himself that right and put others before Himself instead. He lowered Himself in order to raise others up (Romans 12:10, James 4:10, Philippians 2:5-8). When a man, striving to show his significance, refuses help or instruction because he believes it makes him seem incompetent, he allows pride to keep him from attaining the fullness of life and godliness that God has made available to Him.
I think that's where I am right now. That's why my posts have been so infrequent: I want to be able to work through my problems independently to show that I'm capable of succeeding and that I can be a valuable member of a team as a result. But the irony is that I'm trying to be an independent member of a team, which nullifies the importance of teamwork. If I only ask questions I already know the answers to, why ask them? Am I really growing then? Mr. Patrick writes that a father's job is to recognize potential in his child that the child may not be able to see in him- or herself, and then draw it out of him or her through instruction, discipline, and encouragement. I want to be independent, and as a result, I hinder myself from tapping into hidden potential that may be allowed to emerge if I would only seek guidance to identify and foster it. It strikes me now that that might be why I am so repulsed by books with simple answers to complicated questions: I want to believe there's more to the answer that I can find on my own without someone oversimplifying it for me. So maybe that's why I'm reading this book: to humble myself and be willing to ask questions I don't know the answer to, to be taught what I didn't know I needed to learn.
I finished reading Chapter Four today, and it has raised some uncomfortable questions for me. For the last year and a half, I have struggled to choose between continuing on my path toward becoming a band director and diverting from it to remain at Camp Highland a little longer. Toward the middle of this fall was the first time I had felt any kind of peace about staying at camp, so I have been there since then. The peace came from knowing that God intends for me to continue with music but that He has more to teach me through camp until He presents an opportunity for me to enter the music education field. What set me on edge while reading, though, was that I felt as if I fell into one or more of Patrick's categories of discontented working men. The author's directive to quit your less-than-satisfying job and find your calling was offensive to me because, even though I know God has much more planned for me later on down the road, I love what I do where He has me right now. What I don't love is the way my attitudes and reactions have been changing these past few months. My impatience and frustration under duress get the best of me much more frequently, and my incompetencies seem to be highlighted to my eyes. Criticism falls on easily offended ears, and exhortation extinguishes what little motivation I already had. And I hate that this is what's surfacing in me now. What about that "potential" my heavenly Father is supposed to be drawing out of me? My time at camp seems to be having the opposite effect on me. And I'm frustrated.
But Mr. Patrick helped me arrive at a resolution that was a core reason for why I am still at camp but which I seemed to have forgotten in the midst of my discontentment: "[Your] less-than-perfect job is helping hone your passions. It is shoring up weaknesses in your skill set and helping you overcome deficiencies in your character." A lesson God has been bringing to my mind for a few years now is this: In order for Him to meet a need, there first has to be a need. Since I committed my life to the Lord, I have felt disconnected from anyone who speaks of our depravity. I have spoken of it myself, and I have always felt hypocritical about it because, though I know I am a sinful human being and can identify sins I have committed, I have never really felt the crushing weight of my guilt or understood what it meant to grieve for my sins. But I think this period of darkness is God showing me just how ungodly and rebellious I am capable of being so that I can truly understand how desperately I need Him. I need His forgiveness, and I need His righteousness to grow within me and throughout. I am impatient, I am easily offended, I am not all-sufficient though I long to be able to be, I am lustful, I am prideful, I am cynical, I am short-tempered, I wear many masks to hide who I really am; and I hate it. I need Jesus. God caught my attention six years ago by romancing me with His infinite wisdom and glory and the joy that comes from worshiping Him through music. I was overwhelmed with a longing to be filled with His Word and His Presence. Now I am overwhelmed with a longing to be emptied of everything that is contrary to Him. I pray that the holiness of Christ will flush out the sin in me and bring all my darkness to light so that I can be a faithful ambassador and courier of the Gospel of sanctification and redemption. And I pray, as I look ahead to my future as a music educator, that I would not live so entangled in dreams of the future that I forgot about the present, but that I would embrace every obstacle and lesson as an opportunity for growth and service to the Lord that will allow me to advance His Kingdom now and in the future the next time similar obstacles arise.
