Becoming an Adult: Authority and Power

Editor’s note: Parents who are in the process of launching kids into adulthood (Me too!), this book is for you and your young people. Henry Cloud wrote Becoming an Adult as a biblical guide to navigating adulthood. Enjoy this excerpt! 

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Everyone who has ever lived has encountered a particular problem: being born a little person in a big person’s world and being given the task of becoming a big person over time.

We are all born children under adult authority, and over time we are to become authorities ourselves and be in charge of our lives.

Becoming an adult is the process of moving out of a “one-up/one-down” relationship and into a peer relationship to other adults. Becoming an adult is assuming the authority position of life, an important part of the image of God. 

Authority has a number of different facets: power, expertise, office, influence, and submission.

Adults have the power or right to give commands, enforce obedience, take action, or make final decisions. Adults often derive authority from their expertise or knowledge. They also have authority because of their office, or the position they hold. Parents, for example, have authority over children because they are parents. In addition, adults have influence in the arena in which they operate. What they do affects other people. A final part of being an authority is to be able to give up rights and serve others in submission.

In terms of functioning in the image of God, we need to have command over our lives and the domain God has given us, officiate a role or office when asked, influence out of real ownership of something, have expertise, and submit to the authority of God and others without conflict. No wonder growing up is so hard to do. Many forces and circumstances interfere with the process; nevertheless, we must accomplish the task to function successfully as real image bearers. If we don’t attain this position of adulthood, if we stay a child in our adult years, we will suffer significant psychological and emotional distress.

Adults who have not yet become “big people” feel one-down to their contemporaries, or they defensively take the position of being one-up on everyone else. In either case, the developmental task of establishing equality with other adults is imperative if guilt, anxiety, depression, sexual dysfunction, talent development, and spiritual bond servanthood are to be worked through. The developmental process is one of starting life from a position of one-down to the adult world, and gradually growing in stature and wisdom (Luke 2:52) to the point of being an adult in an adult’s world. 

Becoming an adult is a process of taking on more and more power and responsibility as we become old enough to handle them. 

Adults identify with the adult role enough to be able to do grown-up things without conflict, including developing a career, engaging in sexuality, establishing mutual friendships, treating other adults as peers, and having opinions. Adults establish a sense of competency over their lives.

This process of starting as little people and becoming equal with big people begins with bonding, having boundaries and separateness, and resolving good and bad, but ultimately has to do with coming out from under the one-down relationship that a child has to parents and other adults and coming into an equal standing as an adult on his or her own. This is the final step of development so that one can exercise the gifts and responsibilities God has given. It is a big leap into adulthood, but we are supposed to become equal with other adults. Then we can all be siblings — brothers and sisters — under the fatherhood of God.

• Jesus calls us out of the one-down relationship to other people but encourages us to have respect for the role of authority at the same time:

 

He says to do what Moses commanded, but not to consider other people as above us. Do not see them as fathers, for God is the father of Christian adults, and adults are all brothers and sisters. Do not see others as the ultimate leader, for Christ is the leader. He is calling us to the mutual equality of believers, but he is not doing away with the offices of authority others hold. We are to respect the offices of the church. We are to think of other people as equal siblings with us under God, even if they have an office. To submit to them is to submit to God, not to people.

People who believe others are above them are still relating from a child’s position of being under a person, not under God. This belief makes the difference in one’s ability to follow God and to seek God’s approval instead of what people want. People who are stuck in this “people-pleasing” stage can’t take charge of their lives as God commands.

Many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. — John 12:42–43 NASB, emphasis mine

These believers could not exercise their faith because they needed approval from human authority. They had not grown up.

Compare this to the statement about Jesus in Mark 12:14.

Teacher, we know that You are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because You pay no attention to who they are; but You teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

Jesus did not fear others; neither did He need their approval as parent figures. As a result, He could speak the truth to them and let them worry about whether or not they liked it.

In fact, Jesus implied that we are doing something wrong if everyone likes us: 

Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. — Luke 6:26

There has to be some sort of people-pleasing going on when everyone speaks well of us! We have to be speaking from both sides of our mouth. People-pleasing can even keep one from seeing what is true from God: 

How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? — John 5:44

Paul also talked about getting out from under the “approval-of-people” trap: 

We speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. — 1 Thessalonians 2:4

Both Jesus and Paul realized that to do the authoritative work of adulthood, one could not be seeking the approval of other adults. That is what children do, and children cannot do adults’ jobs! Therefore,

seeking the approval of God and not trying to please others is an important aspect of growing into adulthood.

Adults make decisions, have opinions, establish values not subject to approval or disapproval from parents or parental figures, and incur legal consequences for their actions. Along with adulthood comes enormous freedom and responsibility, but the main theme is this: adults don’t need “permission” from some other person to think, feel, or act. And adults are accountable for the consequences of the things they think, feel, and do.

You probably also know people who seem wishy-washy, who look for other people to tell them what to think and believe, blindly following whatever the last “authority figure” has said. They are easily swayed by the thoughts and opinions of others. Others can make them change direction with a word. Others have too strong an influence over their identity, leaving them with strong feelings of guilt and anxiety. They have not become adults.

These are all issues of becoming one’s own adult so that one can submit to the authority of God by choice.

Excerpted with permission from Becoming an Adult by Dr. Henry Cloud, copyright Henry Cloud.

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Your Turn 

Are you ready for all that adulthood holds — the freedoms, privileges, and responsibilities? God will lead and guide you as you submit to His loving leadership and authority and He will help you as you forge the important boundaries that are needed in adulthood. Seek His approval and no one else’s! ~ Devotionals Daily