Men?

What is a man? When is it decided that you are no longer a boy, but now a man? What does it take to be a man?

 

There are so many things in our culture that would define a man like this:

Good with the ladies, excellent at sports, strong physique, confident, unable to be hurt by words, work 60 or more hours a week, be the guy that gets the last word in, life of the party, everyone’s friend. Etc.

 

Is that what our boys are aspiring to become? Who is teaching them that? Has various media  influenced our perceptions about what men are negatively or positively?

 

One of my greatest desires is that my boys will be real men. Men that reject passivity, accept responsibility, lead courageously and expect God’s reward. I learned that phrase from a study I did on authentic manhood. It’s a great desire, but what am I doing about it?

 

Last night everyone that was able to run and kick a ball was in the street playing soccer with me. I kept finding myself critiquing everyone’s play. Especially the boys. I see that they are so driven, so talented and already so good at it that I want to take advantage of every second and every mistake to help them become better. However, in retrospect, to an observer (or worse my son) I must have sounded like a hateful drill sergeant. Am I working toward my goal when I behave like that?

 

In my devotional reading this morning I read about Integrity… not worried about what the world thinks about what I do, but doing it knowing that God knows the truth – always. It may  seem that I think that he is the big mean dad in the sky when I say things like that – but, actually from what I’ve learned about the Lord through; reading, listening, talking with others who love Him and know Him, what I have experienced from Him, talking to Him myself, listening for His voice.. is that He may be that occasionally (when I need it most), but more often He is longsuffering and forgiving, gently reminding me of the way by revelation and encouragement. I hope that I can adopt such mercy in my dealings with all people.

 

If we were to think about it, wouldn’t that be how men do it? Wouldn’t we imitate our Maker?

 

Being a man, it isn’t taught by dads anymore…it’s learned from TV.

 

One of the purposes of this blog is to act as an accountability partner to me. I am working on developing relationships now that will hopefully grow to that level. But, for now, I can only confess and return to this blog to see if I have grown at all. This is a very important topic to me….