Frontal Lobe

As the rain and the snow
   come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
   without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
   It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 

Isa. 55:10,11

I'm not typically the kind of person who offers excuses for people's bad choices. In fact, I'm kind of the antonym of that. I'm pretty direct with people I'm close to and often the first to admit my own stupidity as well (except for those times someone who loves me a lot makes fun of me before I get the chance). But there's some medical information that has come to light in recent years that is hard to ignore. 

They say the frontal lobe in boys isn't fully developed until early adulthood.

In case you're not aware, that's the part of the brain that is the command center for reasoning and decision-making, and provides the ability to recognize future consequences from current actions. I heard this stunning information about a year ago, and have been throwing it around ever since. I have a friend who is around teenagers as much as I am. Whenever one of us sees or hears of a boy doing something, well, for lack of a better word...dumb...all we have to say or text to each other is two words: frontal lobe. We say/text those words a lot.

Now you might be wondering about the accuracy of this information. I'm not really much one for careful scholarship here on the blog and I don't want to stop typing just to go research it for you. But I do think you should be able to count on what you hear from me at least as much as you count on, say, ChaCha or wikipedia. So I checked. Both confirm the claim. ChaCha says it's not fully developed in boys until 25. TWENTY-FIVE, people.

I could go on, but since I'm well past twenty-five and I'm fairly certain that my frontal lobe is fully developed, I'll get to the point. I think that Solomon was way ahead of medical science, and had the still-developing frontal lobe in mind when he wrote the book of Proverbs. After all, he was the wisest guy ever.

Seriously, what does a teenage boy need to know that's not covered in Proverbs? A couple of weeks ago, I suggested to my own teenager that he put down the cell phone for awhile and read through it. He's not the kind of kid who will usually participate in such an exercise unless someone else suggests it, but he is very teachable. So he's been reading, and I know he's getting stuff out of it because he sends me texts highlighting the passages that stand out to him.

I think that Proverbs should be required reading for all teenage boys. And if someone hasn't already written a guys' Bible study or devotions based on Proverbs, they should. But either way, we as parents need to recognize that God hasn't left our kids helpless. He created their brains and He knows all about the development of them. Still, He leaves them no excuses. So we need to point them to God's Word, because He promises that His truth will overcome - even an underdeveloped frontal lobe. And you can tell ChaCha I said so.