Big Boy Pants

There were a couple of guys who are both all but retired who were sharing a job together.  They were all but retired because of their physical conditions, not necessarily because of their age.  They periodically take on paint jobs, repair jobs....most anything to help out with the home expenses.  Both of the guys have significantly checkered pasts, pasts that literally "took them down" at a time when they were both still in their prime (working prime).  Obviously, their individual pasts came to roost:

• their productive earning years were cut short by the results of their earlier behavior and living styles
• thus, at an older age now,  they face much more financial insecurity than they otherwise might have had it not been for those earlier choices made by each
• and, because of that, each finds it necessary to productively work in their sunset years as opposed to enjoying the fruits of what should have been more than a few years of normal working life.

Interestingly, neither guy whines about the current situation he is facing.  Both men have become believers and each man views his ugly past as a gift, as you will, because each was allowed to live through it when many others didn't.  They also look at all that garbage as a positive, because to each it seems as if God never interfered with all of those bad choices each made, yet never abandoned them either.  He simply waited.....and waited.....and waited.  And when that moment came when each turned themselves over to Christ, He was still there with His arms wide open.....and He welcomed them and showered each with the gift of grace and redemption.

We all have parts of our lives that could (and maybe still do) that could be considered negative.  We all carry the baggage of our past to some degree or another.  And, we all have a serious choice to make when it comes to how the negatives and the baggage control us or impact us now. 

1. We can allow it to control us and impact us....which it will
2. or, we can put our big boy pants on and move ahead.

By putting on the big boy pants, we free ourselves of that past.  By putting them on we are better enabled to be the men we were meant to be....children of God.  And while those big boy pants don't necessarily protect us from ourselves (I have proven that many times over) they are the "tools" that allow us recognize our faults and sin when it happens, and they become the pathway to forgiveness and grace.  Christian men, husbands, and fathers will never be perfect....but they will always be wearing their big boy pants.  And one size fits all.

Do you have your big boy pants on?