NOTE: These are my thoughts as I go through “Heart of a Warrior” and put down into words its message and theme to help men reclaim their identity – as Kingdom men who stand firm in their faith and are willing and able to serve Christ and the greater good of this world.

Fighting for a Cause: Men (Part 3)

Don’t be naive about this world – we live in world where people are self-absorbed, money hungry, cynical, ruthless, addicted to lust and base desires, and allergic to the notion of God.

Sounds like a pretty good description of the world, right?

That’s from the Gospel of Timothy, and those are the words he wrote over 2,000 years ago that are so true today:

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV)

You see the world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

-Albert Einstein

We live in a world of faded attempts. To do what’s right. Dreams that failed to materialize. A growing collection of should’ve, would’ve and could’ve in our lives.

Paul the apostle talked about running so as to win, yet men tire and get stuck at various mile markers along life’s marathon course. Make no mistake it is a dangerous course where every decision matters and so much in this world is set against men as they run.

When was the last time you heard someone say something positive about men lately?

As men we feel this crushing opposition, this constant barrage that you are worthless, not needed, broken, etc. There’s no question the course men are on is filled with mine fields, washed out roads, poorly marked signs, hecklers, and downright nasty conditions. To make matters worse there are often other imperfect men running with us, casualties of the blind leading the blind, and the wounded, wounding those around them.

This dangerous road we travel is a man’s life and the critical mile markers men must travel lie along an ancient and long forgotten path. The times that we live in there are no voices of wisdom for men, so we need to look to the voices of the past, the pioneers, the explorers, and teachers who lived the journey and shared about it. Those forerunners, those ancient mentors walked a road of masculinity with God and a deep friendship with each other. They were transformed men whose hope it was to produce more transformed men. In retrospect, we’ve lost so much ground with today’s self-serving world.

Is there even such a thing as a transformed man?

Because there sure is such a thing as a drug addicted man, an abusive man, an unemployed man, a cheating man, a dishonest man, a suicidal man, and so on.

Does anyone really even listen to the wounded cries of men? or are we so used to treating them like trash that their subtle cries for help are met with a door slammed in their face?

The collective outcry is always the same. Sometimes its anger, frustration, sometimes deep sadness from the pain. This is the world of the most men. The disoriented, the lost, the discarded, etc.

Not all men are like this, thank God. There are oriented men, men who are not bulletproof, but get hit in life far less than they used to. Men with struggles to be sure, but men who struggle well. They may not be experiencing good in all their circumstances but as oriented men they know God is at work for a deeper good in their lives. They are taking back lost ground in their own hearts and partnering with God for the hearts of others.

I think we as men live in a delusion that someday things will get better, without really knowing what that is or even what that means in our life. We suffer but we’re not really sure what we’re suffering from. We know the symptoms – anger, frustration, sadness, boredom, guilt, shame, but all these seem unfortunately normal in this world because that’s all we’ve ever known. And it doesn’t come from an unbelieving heart. Almost every man I know is a believer at least at some level.

It comes from a disoriented heart. A lost heart.

What we’ve been taught, however, deep down about God, our heart, and ourselves is far worse than we ever knew. John Eldridge said it best, that most men (and boys) have no real father to guide them through the jungles of the masculine journey. And as such, most of us are unfathered & unfinished men. To a lesser extent, I was one of them. But I am aware in life, and I’m changing that. And I will change that for others too, if I can.

I would point out that doesn’t mean we had bad fathers, but that our fathers themselves were unfinished and unfathered. When my father turned 18 his dad said, “Well son, good luck, you’re a man now. I’m out of here.” Literally. And rode off on a motorcycle and was gone. He also watched his mother leave with another man and abandon him as well.

The concept of the ‘generation curse’ is real, and there are some very strong reasons behind that. I used to hate my father for not equipping me to handle life, but that view has since changed to compassion for him because I knew he did the best he could, given the foundation he was built upon.

One sign of a disoriented man is one who settles – not only in his life, but for being a servant of the Kingdom rather than a warrior for it. I remember being shocked when my class was asked the question. “So if you are confronted with a conflict are you a fight or flight? In other words, do you run from the conflict, or do you stand and fight it? The class separated with the ‘flight’ on one side of the room and the ‘fight’ on the other.

At least half the men in the class went to the ‘flight’ side.

Duty bound serving will take its toll until life is either boring or irrelivant. How much in life do we as men, do out of a sense of duty?

Let me be clear, I am not against being a servant at all, it is essential. However, you can be a servant and not a warrior, but it is impossible to be a warrior in God’s kingdom and not a servant.

My whole life, and most men’s are plagued by the thought that there is far more available to us than what we have become. There has got to be more than the constant low-grade fear, sadness, and frustration that regularly surfaces up in our lives. But like most men I never could pinpoint where it was coming from, other than I obviously wasn’t doing enough, whatever that ‘enough’ was.

No matter what I tried the result was always the same, disappointment, feeling cheated, inadequate, etc. It took my entire life, and then salvation on top of that to realize I was ill equipped, ill prepared, and ill-advised almost from the get-go in life.

The Enemy is well aware of what we as men are not, and will whisper in our ears the most damaging, worst things possible, that “I am alone”, “I am worthless”. But how do we escape this and step into the life God created us for and role we are meant to play?

We know the usual answer that’s given… Serve more. Do more. Give more. Sin less. That encapsulates pretty much 99% of the religious programs for men – and it doesn’t work.

See my first post on that for why.

Probably the biggest factor is a naivety and lack of self-awareness that keeps a man from moving forward into the role that is his and his alone to play in the larger story. Men are simply lost in a modern world that seeks to give men their identity when it has always been the other way around – a man should bring his own identity to this world.

This leads to men settling, year after year, retreating into less & less and because of their naivety this feels normal. Until they finally realize all the damage they’ve caused, all the opportunities they’ve let slip away. And by that point they feel it’s too late, and men simply give up in life, because they don’t know what they don’t know, and the only thing they do know, is that life just didn’t work out for them.

Every man hears voices telling him who he is, what he is, and why he is the way he is. And I can promise you if you look at the source of those voices and their origins, they are poisonous and meant to humiliate, and to shame and break down and take away the fundamental essence of who you are as a man.

Perilous compromises are always at the door with these voices, inviting a man to fear, or prove or hide himself. If a man never awakens to his own inner voices telling him his abilities are not tainted, then he’ll fall victim to the Enemy that has a vested interest in building a man based on false and incorrect assumptions about himself

You are what you believe.

Forces are at work both for us and against us. That’s life. Its time to wake up, to see, hear, and engage in training to enter this larger story men are called to and reclaim our hearts and true voice. and re-enter life as noble yet uncompromising men.

In order to be uncompromising men, i.e.. who can reject the perilous compromises of the Enemy, we must journey and explore with God what is noble within us and what is not.

There is something very good God is after in men.

A restored and free life – its the one that men were meant to have. And meant to share. Maybe I’m putting too much faith in the everyday man, but every single man should want to undertake the journey to become whole and make his heart whole, yet few are willing to take this journey because compromise has taken its toll.

I believe that at that moment of salvation a man is not only a new creation, but given a new heart, and it is up to him to train up and learn how to live, and love from his new heart. There is nothing greater in a man’s life than when the deepest part of him, his heart, becomes whole.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.” (Ezekial 36:26-28 NIV)

God will arrange the moments in your life to invite, grow, and develop the true man – if we will give Him first place in our lives.

But how many men are willing to do that?

Almost none, unfortunately. I look at it this way, we have approximately 12 men who made a commitment to our church to give up a Tuesday night and serve on Sunday’s and to participate in a program that puts God first and will grow their faith. For easter service our church had approximately twenty thousand in attendance.

Twelve of those men showed up for our Church’s bible program.

The wounds taken early in a man’s journey and the mistakes made will later stunt our growth as men. When something is stunted, its normal growth is hindered and/or its progress ceases – this is especially true of the heart. It can get stuck & pinned down in so many different ways. A significant loss, an attack on one’s innocence, shame & embarrassment at the hands of critics.

Simply not knowing how to do something can turn into a major assault on one’s heart. After all, society expects men to know how to do everything, and you are a failure as a man if you do not.

We have an epidemic of boys who shave, wear men’s suits, and drive. It’s because they are often forced to defend themselves too early, to learn to hide in order to protect themselves. Forced to take on responsibilities beyond their years that they’re not anywhere ready for. I know this by my own experience, and it is 100% accurate. These things have kept many a man – a boy.

Few can boast of provision & protection as a boy and fewer still can boast of being trained up in love at the hands of a good man and in the company of good men. Without these things, the results later in life are catastrophic. Some men become violent men, fighting to benefit themselves and not others. Boardrooms, living rooms its all the same, they have become their ‘ok corrals’.

Their strategy? Do unto others… before they do unto you.

Passive men are the other extreme. These men learned early to not even try, rather they hide behind the mediocre and under a message of ‘you’re just good enough’. Their strategy is, ‘just freeze and let the moment pass you by.’

If unfinished, stunted men look at the world through a disoriented lens it stands to reason that the conclusions that they draw about themselves and their world will be disoriented. Their views and attitudes will in turn lead to behaviors that are harmful rather than helpful. On a daily basis such men live as consumers of others, using and taking life – rather than offering it.

Or they are simply checked out and disengaged. Avoiding life and both obsessing over and controlling their own surroundings. I know plenty of them.

Both the violent and the passive, the consumers and the hiders all do the same – make life about themselves.

Just as boys will tend to do.

Almost all men practice life in one, or a combination of these ways.

But men can change – if they want to. What they need is a new interpretation of their lives and what needs to happen.

And that is exactly what Jesus calls us to as men.

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39 NIV)

A man who seeks to provide for and protect others knows the difference. Finding “Life” is a dangerous and difficult pursuit, but we don’t make it alone – Jesus promises, “I am with you.” (Matthew 28:20 NIV)

For men, the masculine journey is the journey. A journey worth taking and exploration worth taking and a fight worth entering. It will absolutely alter your life course – but if you are unwilling to fight, to stand up to the great Enemy, the bully of this world, then don’t waste my time – or yours.

The journey will demand much.

It typically takes 3-5 years to reset a man’s heart and the journey will be filled along the way with plenty to make a man not so much want to quit, but to stop taking risks and to settle for where he is.

All the times that I have put myself out there and gotten burned, gone right back to square one and had to figure out why, I could simply just quit and go live an easier less risky life and be happy. But I am not willing to do that.

Even under the best circumstances I recognize that I’ve got years to go, and that’s fine with me. I know what I have to look forward to…

It is worth it.

Breaking free from the lower life to the higher life comes with promises, but also warning about the pitfalls, but what you lose can’t possibly be compared with what you’ll gain.

I know this is what men deeply want. I know this is what men need. I know this because I am a man. And I say this because as men these words call up something deep in our hearts.

Every man wants to matter.

He wants to contribute. To be called up and make a difference.

Every man has a deep desire to be a man.

Jesus, just after telling them to be brave, and just before leaving, made a similar life altering declaration to a bunch of men on the brink of entering battle.

“I am no longer calling you servants, because servants don’t know what their master is thinking and planning, no I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father. You didn’t choose me, I chose YOU […].” (John 15:15-16 NIV Paraphrased)

They are a long way from their fishing nets and ledger tables, they have seen things and done things that have altered them as men.

You see, most men have never been called up. And therefore, have never been told – you can do this. You can become more. You ARE more. You have it in you, and I’ll help you. Come with me, follow me, I’ll show you the way…Let’s go.

All men have suffered loss, and we will again. But we can recover from life’s worst losses, including the loss of heart. I can’t emphasize how important this is – the loss of heart. All men have a fighting spirit and a fighting heart within them.

But when you break a man’s spirit, when you break a man’s heart (i.e., his passion for something) then he is done. Finished. He’ll simply give up. It’s how men work.

The good news is we can reclaim our hearts from bondage. Jesus has made the way for us, and we must gather up our courage and strength and step through it. We can become whole again, not just for our sake but for the sake of others. In order to love others well, to truly love them in a way that alters their lives, we have to first receive and have known love for ourselves.

I’ll say that part again because it is critical – we have to first receive and have known love for ourselves.

For men, care for our hearts first is not selfish, it is both noble and necessary. What help can we be to those around us when our own wounds continue to cripple us?

For a long time, I never understood the concept of ‘guard your own heart above all else’ In fact the bible specifically states, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23 NIV) but I now realize how critical it is that the heart be protected at all costs, for it is the loss of ‘heart’ that wounds a man the most and will steal his passion and his fire that allows him to accomplish greatness in life.

Personal experience has taught me that – I’m very fortunate to be at a point to bounce back and recover myself (and my heart) and continue pressing forward.

Jesus says that it is in receiving from Him, that we are redeemed, reborn, and refashioned into beloved sons. Those sons can then be made into warriors, taking up the Kingdom cause through an intimate relationship with the King.

If a man is not oriented, is not aware that he is a beloved son, then he will get run over in life through discouragement, despair, anger, resentment, and depression. But when a man can come to Christ and drink deeply from His well of ‘living water’ (John 4:10) everything changes.

Everything.

I know this for a fact, when I was saved everything changed. Its why I’m writing this, and why I do what I do. For His glory. For His will.

Not my own will be done Lord, but yours…

The point I would emphasize is we don’t have to try and matter (and thus fall short) – we matter more than we will ever be able to comprehend – because Jesus died for us. We are loved both extravagantly & excessively. Use whatever adjectives you will, they all apply.

We were literally made to experience & encounter God’s love. Until we can experience this love firsthand, all we have is an idea or a theory. Reading and hearing about God’s love is helpful, to be sure. But its not the same as tasting and seeing that He is good.

Love is what matters. Love is the point. Love is the first step in becoming a man.

Saying something like that is completely at odds with what society tells us a man is and should be, and that is one of the main reasons we’re at where we are today.

Throughout a man’s life he is, at times, invited or asked to step up and take a step forward. Doing so isn’t ever convenient, and it never seems easy. These are times where he’ll have to fix his gaze forward, brace himself and take a step. The results aren’t guaranteed yet step he must. And in the right direction.

That step is personal, and original for each man, each image bearer, and a two-hour men’s seminar, or bible study program can’t script that for you. I can’t even script that for myself…

But God is the one authoring our stories. And He is at work customizing our recovery. Designing each man into what He truly wants him to be. I am living proof of this.

Fierce, yet tender. Filled with strength & compassion. “A man’s heart plans the way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9 NKJV) A man will need to take many steps, because the pull of this world will always be towards a smaller story.

In that narrative, life revolves around him, and He is the center of the story. That’s a good summary of most people’s lives in this world, and men are especially prone to this false narrative. Pushing against this pull takes an awareness, and a courage that most men aren’t aware they have within them. But it is precisely in the struggle that a man finds out what he is made of, and what still needs training.

That said, the fight will always be to convince a man that God can offer a greater role for him than he can. And this is no easy task because it WILL take a courage that is greater than what a man can muster on his own, and a faith that is larger than what he can see.

God is in charge of his healing, his restoration, and his training. And the fist courageous step a man must take is backwards – he must head back to what first shaped him in his youth. I spoke a lot about the need to identify & connect with his past in the previous two posts.

In a fallen world with fallen men all around you, what are the chances of getting to adulthood unscathed? Nil. Zero.

There are a million different ways that a boy’s heart falls victim in life – to wounded parents, family members, coaches, teachers, and others. Many are the shaping forces of a man’s disoriented heart. But there is good news – you can become healed, oriented, and rise above their effects.

No matter how old you are, how experienced or inexperienced, there is One who wants to take you on this quest. One who wants the significant role of teaching, loving, initiating, validating and turning you free into the world – it is a life available to you, and one that is far better than you could possibly imagine.

A life in Christ and a home the Kingdom. And the good news is it is a life that is available to all who seek it.