Last week, my oldest daughter, Taylor (a recent newlywed), treated me to a concert on Thursday night. We had a great time together and although it turned into Friday morning, I am now, 5 days later fully recovered.
This specific concert venue was for a band named “Silverstein” which Taylor and I have now seen together more than 5 times over the last ten years. This “father / daughter date” night is our thing. Always has been. So there I enjoyed the heavy rhythmic tones of the band and the smiles on my daughter’s face as she enjoyed the evening.
Upon my return home and waking the next day, i couldn’t help but to pull up the Ticketmaster app, and search for who was coming to town next to play a gig. It was that 4 to 5 hours of young energy just got me spinning into enough day dreaming to find another show.
20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable.21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable,[d] he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant[e] must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
2 Timothy 2: 20-26
It’s a hard thing to break a habit is it not? Now I am by no means saying today to give up on music, or going out, or especially not “dating your daughter”, but I do want to point out the following. I was enjoying myself at that concert, but more enjoyable than the music or the atmosphere, was the TIME I had with my daughter. The SMILES I saw on her face… but make no mistake, I WAS OUT OF PLACE at this event. Not saying i can’t fit in or look like other older dudes listening to a heavy jam, BUT MY HABITS HAVE CHANGED from what they were 20 years ago.
My patterns are different now. The “glory days” were grand but they DO NOT COMPARE to the KINGDOM DAYS of NOW. We must as mature, faith grooming, Christ following soldiers remember where we came from but we musn’t dwell in the the past. Faith that saves us is about moving to new levels, higher places, a life with more production and purpose than you had yesterday, or ten years ago. The glory days are dead.
Can you still party? Can you still have fun? I can’t answer that for each person, I can say that for myself, a little party now a days goes a long way… (pun intended). Look, readers at different faith stages can take this simple post and blow it out of the water or dismiss it entirely, but regardless of YOUR definition of a party, we’ve got to be killing the glory days. We’ve got to be moving in the direction of closeness to Christ, not sliding the other direction. You CAN BE FUN and ENERGETIC without getting stupid. Without living in excess…
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace
There’s always a party going on somewhere….. but how many of us are producers? How often are we thinking and planning and DOING the work parts of life to be beneficial to our neighbors and community? Let’s be SET APART…
set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work!
Barnabas Man 