A little while back while doing some research I found this article which states that the rational part of the brain, the part that we use to judge the long-term effects of a decision, doesn’t fully develop until around the age of twenty-five. Here’s another article with some good word-pictures stating the same thing.
This got me thinking. Our brains don’t fully develop until we’re in our mid-twenties, but most of us feel trapped by the decisions we made and the identities we took on when we were in high school and college! Isn’t that crazy? We let our lives be controlled by decisions we made before we could even process what we were doing!
I think what makes this harder is that as we get older and start to discern the direction we really want to take in our lives, we not only have to contend with the feeling of wasting our early adulthood (not to mention our college tuition!) on something it turns out we have no interest in anymore, but we also have the added social pressure of how our friends and family are going to respond to the seemingly sudden changes that are happening.
This reminds me of a story from when I was in college. I was working at a Speedway gas station, and an old friend from junior high came in and started talking to me. He ended up asking what I was going to school for. When I answered him that I was going to school to study theology and ministry (I was a Youth Ministry major at the time, I eventually changed my major to Philosophy, then subsequently dropped out of college – what was that I said about wasted college tuition?) he couldn’t believe it! He was a friend I used to get in all kinds of trouble with – vandalizing, smoking, sneaking in movies, the classic junior high mischief – and here he was hearing me say that I was going to school to become a minister. He couldn’t take me seriously.
It’s that exact type of reaction that makes us second guess. We remember all those dumb decisions we made. We know the person we’ve been isn’t at all close to the person we aspire to be. But what’s more is that the people around us remember too! Our old friends remember all the crazy things we did, the parties, the girls or the guys, the off-colored remarks, all of it. And when they see us step forward all of a sudden trying to be something else, they tell us we’re acting “holier than thou” and trying to act “better than” everybody, trying to be all “high and mighty.” But really, inside, we’re just trying to be better than who we used to be.
One Bible excerpt that gives me a little bit of comfort here is found in Matthew 13:54-58 (NLT):
He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his own family.” And so he did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.
It turns out that even Jesus had some resistance because of where he came from.
The truth is that some people will only ever see you for who you were or where you came from. In some eyes you will never grow beyond the decisions of yesteryear. But that doesn’t have to limit who you are becoming.
Be comforted in this: yes, you were a different person then than you are now. That doesn’t make you a hypocrite. It doesn’t make you fake. It makes you a human who is learning and growing. If you’re the same person when you’re eighty that you were when you were twenty, that means you spent your whole life being stagnant. That’s not what we’re here for! As young people, we think our lives should be sorted out by the time we’re twenty-five. Our brain isn’t even fully functioning until we’re twenty-five! Cut yourself some slack, and allow yourself to grow!
When you look out ahead and see the person you want to be, the husband or wife you want to be, the father or mother you want to be, the loving friend, the wise leader, realize that you don’t become that person over night. Realize that nobody who ever became that person did so without living portions of their life that they aren’t proud of. And the one person who did, Jesus, still got looked down on by those who knew him in his youth. So even if you had been perfect, it still wouldn’t get rid of the people telling you you’re not cut out for it.
So don’t let the naysayers stop you. Don’t let your past stop you. Don’t let old titles and labels stick to you. See the person you want to become, the person God has called you to be, and walk towards it unapologetically. Know that you will fail at times. But know that at the end of the day, you will have wisdom and strength you would never have known if you had settled in and never taken a step forward.
The Endeavor 