When Boys Learn to Walk—and Men Learn to Grow
How a Father’s Joy Reveals God’s Patience and His Expectation for Our Spiritual Maturity | by Nathan Crankfield, Founder & President, Seeking Excellence
I will never forget the joy of watching my son learn how to walk.
Like most men, when I learned that we were pregnant with a boy, my mind was flooded with hopes and dreams. From teaching him to play basketball to dreaming of him leading men in the Army like I did, I had big hopes for the man he would become.
Learning to take his first steps was a huge milestone along this journey to reaching his full potential. As I watched him in the weeks leading up to it, I saw him struggle through crawling, learning how to stand, and finally building enough courage and strength to wobble 2-3 feet before falling. To say I was proud would be a severe understatement.
This process reminded me of some great wisdom I heard a few years back at a men’s conference in Denver. The presenter was speaking about God’s patience with us, even when we can be so unbelievably impatient with ourselves.
When we draw closer to the light of Christ, our many flaws and vices are so clearly on display, especially to us. We tend to get extremely frustrated with our lack of progress, or even with our consistent regression.
The speaker compared God the Father to a father watching his son taking his first steps. When the son stumbles and falls, as my son did, any good father would encourage his son. He would not, like we do to ourselves, turn to rage and ridicule. The good father is supportive and cheers the little boy on when he gets back up to try again.
So it is with us and God. When we stumble and fall, God is there to cheer us on when we get back up to give the life of virtue another go.
This is great encouragement for men at the beginning of their journey. It is also, however, lacking the fullness of what the analogy has to offer.
God indeed encourages us, like an earthly father does, to keep getting back up and putting one foot in front of the other. But imagine if my son was five years old and could not walk. Or if he was 10 years old and had not yet learned to run or jump. We’d rightfully assume something was seriously wrong with his development.
The same is true for us in our spiritual life. Yes, God is very patient with us as we learn the basics: getting to mass every Sunday, going to confession once per year, and saying a prayer before meals with our family. But just as with our physical development, our spiritual life is not meant to remain in its infancy forever.
As St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”
The expectation is that we develop over time. We are meant to grow into spiritual manhood. Each of us should grow into a spiritual leader in our home, our parish, and our broader community.
My son’s first steps were a milestone along the way, not the final destination. I rejoiced because it was his beginning, but I love him too much to let him believe that this is his maximum potential.
He has much more to give and many more ways to grow. The same goes for you and for me.
