Old Friends and Old Favorites--I Must Be Getting Older

Last night I got a phone call from my old college roommate of twenty-eight years.  DJ and I lived together for two years but our friendship has faced obstacles, hardships, joys and loss.  I was his best man for his wedding and was there years ago when he and Verda faced a major surgery.  When he called it was as if we had never been apart and were back at Minden Hall, our first dormitory in college.  I was a new Christian and he was my mentor even though he was younger than me.  He held me accountable and helped me to grow.  One day sitting in our room talking about our pasts, DJ opens his trunk of memories.  He showed me his prom pictures and one made us both laugh.  DJ was dressed in a white tuxedo with platformed shoes, cane and his fro was picked out to its fullest.  I told him I had a fro just before college and wore leisure suits, but fortunately there are no incrementing pictures.  Twenty-eight years and now he is a grandpa, his wife has retired and went back to school to be a teacher, and his baby is entering tenth grade.

 
This morning I was looking for another favorite.  Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter!  Peanut butter and banana sandwiches! Peanut butter and Fluff!  Peanut butter and apple butter!  Perhaps the reason I like Peter Pan is its logo—the image of a flying boy who never wanted to grow up.  This nearly one hundred year old product followed me to school just like Mary’s lamb.  I don’t usually eat it, but every once in a while I just have to eat a peanut butter sandwich. 

When I was a child, I talked like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11

I am no longer the young Christian I was twenty-eight years ago.  I have experiences which have been God’s method of maturing me.  My first pastorate I wanted to please people and so build a church to me.  I have learned I am there to serve God and not myself.  I can’t be a friend to God and the world, no matter how I might have wanted its approval.  I have grown to trust less in myself and more of God.  I may have put away my Christian childhood for Christian maturity, but nobody better take away my Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter!