Adult Adolescence

And the Lord said, “To what then shall I liken the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, saying: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned to you, and you did not weep.’” Luke 7:31-32

In the early 90s, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic met the European leaders involved in the Serbian conflict to hammer out a peace treaty between the various ethnic races. Halfway through the negotiation, he stood up and walked out of the meeting. As he left the room, he turned and shouted at the delegates, “Well, if you don’t want to play by my rules, I am not going to play by your rules!” The result of Milosevic’s tantrum was the death of thousands of innocent people in the war at Kosovo.

Jesus likens the men of this generation to children playing games: “If you don’t want to play by my rules, I don’t want to play with you anymore. I will take my ball. I will go home to sulk!” The late Dr. Edwin Louis Cole calls this “adult adolescence.”

When a child is growing up, he exhibits certain immature characteristics because of his childishness:

1. The child is the center of his own universe. Everything revolves around him.
2. The child is insensitive to the needs of others.
3. The child demands his own way. And if he doesn’t get his own way, the next thing happens.
4. The child throws temper tantrums.
5. The child is irresponsible in behavior. Children are not born obedient. They have to learn obedience. Solomon says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). Even Jesus had to learn obedience through the things He suffered (Heb. 5:8).
6. The child is unable to be reasoned with. No wonder the Bible says that “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). This leads me to the last characteristic:
7. The child only obeys concrete authority.
   

All that I have listed above are the characteristics of a child. As you mature, you are supposed to outgrow your childishness. But when a person matures only in age but not in character, responsibility and discipline, then the characteristics of a child will still be bound in his attitude and worldview. That is when the syndrome of adult adolescence becomes obvious.