Kyle's Rite of Passage

Kyle's Rite of Passage

 

I was honored to have been invited to participate and serve on the wisdom counsel of a young man named Kyle, whose parents were celebrating their son's rite of passage.  The following was in a note sent to me from Kyle's dad as to what to expect at the actual ceremony. The event would follow these guidelines. Of course there were more but these were the important ones to me.

 

The Purpose:  To formally invite Kyle to join the ranks of men by accepting responsibility for his own spiritual growth.

 

The Plan:  Several Christian men who have influenced Kyle's life will spend time discussing manhood and inviting him to move beyond childhood by accepting responsibility for becoming a man of God. 

 

The Event:  Each man is asked to write a letter to Kyle on the assigned topic to read during the evening ceremony and present some small item/gift that is symbolic of their topic/charge.  Kyle will be invited to read his own letter accepting the invitation to manhood and then his dad will lead the men in blessing prayer.

 

The letter each man wrote and read was the charge to this young man from him to take responsibility for becoming a true friend to others by serving them, supporting them when they need it, and modeling Jesus' example of "laying down one's life for his friends."

 

When my time came, here is some of what I wrote to Kyle.

 

In 1917, when the American troops were preparing to sail across the seas in order to take to the battlefields of France and Belgium in the First World War, the New York Bible Society asked President Theodore Roosevelt to inscribe a message in a Bible that each soldier would be given. He happily complied, and he began by quoting Micah 6:8 – The passage reads, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

 

Why do you think Roosevelt chose this passage? One author responded by saying: "The foes of our own household will surely prevail against us unless there dwells in our people an inner life which finds its expression in an inner morality like that preached by the seers and prophets of God when the grandeur of Greece and the glory that was Rome still lay in the future."

 

The antidote to arrogance and self-centeredness is a heavy dose of humility which the Micah mandate calls for. That heavy dose of humility will be swallowed best when it is chased by the two mentioned ingredients, justice and mercy!

 

You see Kyle, Micah calls for us to DO justice. First, that means to have a clear conscience. Even an accountability partner can not insure this clear conscience except that accountability partner be an honest conscience guided and confirmed by our God.

 

Second, to do justice Kyle, is to do what is right! I learned a similar lesson to this in marching band. There was a plan given me and others around me by a higher authority and I was only one part of the whole. In order for the plan to play out effectively and beautifully in the eyes and ears the spectators, I had to find that designed place in the midst of a host of others looking for their place -- all the while distracted by responsibilities I had been given that concern the tool (trumpet) in my hand! My entire focus was to do right by all who were in this designed plan with me. Life's journey is very similar. This call is the Inward Call!

 

Next, Micah calls on us to love mercy. Not to DO mercy but to LOVE mercy. There have been many arguments as to which virtue is the highest of all virtues. Many say honesty is the highest but I believe it is mercy. God does not give us what we honestly deserve, in fact He gives to us what we honestly do not deserve – in this, I am glad mercy trumps honesty in the heart of God toward me. He knows that we will automatically do what we love, so he commands us to love mercy! This mercy is to be shown to our fellow man.

 

Then we walk humbly before our God. By accomplishing the first two, our life's walk will automatically be an expedition in humility! A humble heart calls us to seek and serve Christ toward ALL persons by giving ourselves willingly to the welfare of other people.

 

This expedition will not be easy. There will be a myriad of obstacles before us that could discourage us.

 

An interesting map is on display in the British Museum in London. It's an old mariner's chart, drawn in 1525, outlining the North American coastline and adjacent waters. The cartographer made some intriguing notations on areas of the map that represented regions not yet explored. He wrote: "Here be giants," "Here be fiery scorpions," and "Here be dragons." Eventually, the map came into the possession of Sir John Franklin, a British explorer in the early 1800's. Scratching out the fearful inscriptions, he wrote these words across the map: "Here is God."

 

Were there dragons "out there" Kyle? No. And, one day, someone possessed of the faith that "God inhabits the unknowns" and with the boldness to begin, set off and discovered a New World. This is what I hope for you Kyle!  There is a vast unknown in a life determined to discover the unknown potential that lies just off the map. If we can summon the boldness and cast our lot with God who architected us and architects futures and lays out designs, what we've always wanted may lay just off the map. But in the process you must do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly before your God!

 

Heritage Builders offers a book that outlines the steps of a "Rite of Passage," Spiritual Milestones. I hope you will read it and seriously consider where this fits into the life of your child when he/she reaches adolescence and is looking out into the future – the unknown. What a stabilizing event this will become in their life!

 

 

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