Orig: 12/23/02
13Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 14Do everything in love.
1 Corinthians 16:13-14
I will never forget the first time I heard a man call other men boys.
My wife and I were at Family Life’s “Weekend to Remember” in Portland. That was definitely a weekend to remember for Shanna and I, but besides our great time together the speaker slapped my paradigm of manhood ( I do not even remember his name) when he told the “men” to grow up and stop being boys.
For the first time in my life I realized that in many aspects of my life I was still a boy, even though I was 40 years old! I am a boy when I treat my wife like she is exists to meet my selfish needs. I am a boy when I fail to accept responsibility for my family’s spiritual health and development. I am a boy when I choose hobbies and pleasures over engaging with my boys and serving my wife.
I vowed that weekend to work all my life to be, and remain, a man for my wife, my kids, my ministry and my friends. I decided that day to declare war on my boyhood tendencies.
“Manhood is accepting responsibility, rejecting passivity, pursuing God passionately, leading courageously and finishing strong.”
I know a lot of 40-year-old boys.
I bet you do too. I bet some of you reading this still are in many areas of your life. But Peter Pan only exists in Disneyland. Snap out of it.
Boys place their pleasure before others. Boys place their needs above those closest to them. Boys are selfish, spoiled little children. Boys serve themselves first. Boys are parents but not fathers, spouses but not husbands, acquaintances but not friends and Christians but not disciples.
Boys are adult children-pathetic.
They are not difficult to find since they are in the majority of the modern day man. I am often tempted to fall back into my boyish ways but I so desperately want to remain a man, even though being a man is so much more difficult. Maybe that is why there remain so many adult boys in our world.
Boyhood is the short cut, the easy road.
But being a man takes, well, being a man. It takes courage.
Every man is called to lead, be on your guard and be aware of any attack by the enemy. Men are called by God to be the courageous leaders in their homes but so many today are lazy cowards. I am not anti-woman (in fact I do not know what I would do without my wife and those strong women in my life and ministry who challenge and encourage me), but I am absolutely pro-man. Actually, I know it sounds cliché but I am pro-magnum-man!
Where are the magnum men in the Church? Where is their leadership? They speak courageous words but live cowardly lives. They talk about leading their families while lounging on the furniture. God has given men the awesome and horrible privilege of leading his family and being a priest in his home.
This takes courage. It takes being a man.
It means courageously standing guard over his wife and children. It means being the last to lie down at night and the first to rise in the morning. It means taking the first step on the journey of life, the first to forgive and the first to step in faith. It means getting off the couch and getting in the game. It means being the first to stand and the last to sit. It means being a man of courage.
It means pushing away to the boy and embracing the man.
