Tag Archives: mental health

helmet and armor

Men Need Men

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(A four-minute read)

If you’re a man, and lonely for a friend, or need encouragement, you need a man in your life, not a woman.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not putting down women. They are lovely and empathize well and are more likely to express their feelings overtly than a man. I married a woman, and she’s great!

But I’ve found that women in general are not as good at keeping me accountable as my male friends. And accountability is a critical thing in the life of men.

There are two reasons why I need men for this. One, my biggest challenges are not the same as a woman’s. That Mars-Venus thing is real. Two, there are things I can only share with a man, and won’t share with a woman, not even my wife.

Men Save My Life

Finding men to whom I can be accountable is an important survival tactic. I won’t thrive without it. These guys help keep me from avoidable (read: stupid) mistakes. They tell me the truth. They help me turn back to what’s right when I stumble.

The race of life is not a sprint. Nor is it a marathon. It’s not even a relay race. It’s a combination of the three. I run the race of life for the long haul, as fast as I can, but I do it in the midst of other runners whom I trust. We stick together.

These runners keep my eye on God’s horizon, so I stay on his narrow way, instead of wandering off into the weeds somewhere. It takes focus and dedication and thinking a different way than the world does. It works better in a group.

Men also keep me from freaking out. Don’t succumb to a spirit of fear, guys. You have power, can act in love and – in community – have a sound mind.2

Don’t Go Alone

Why did I add ‘in community’ here? Look at the context (2 Timothy 1:7-9). It’s about us: God has not given us; God who has saved us and called us; not by our works; His…grace which was given us.

Christian men can forget we must be an us not a me. We’re in this together – like it or not – but are all too often tempted to go it alone.

I was called to account on this just today – the day of this writing. I have a weekly call with a friend and in the course of our talking through what God is doing, what we are doing, where things are going, what we want to pray about, I mentioned that I want to learn more about the Fear of the Lord.

My friend immediately suggested we do that together, for accountability.

I’m abashed. I hadn’t thought of that. I forgot the point of this essay, that men are strong in community and weak alone. So I’m preaching to myself here.

Think about King David’s so-called Mighty Men. They were mighty because they were together as a force. Scripture shows that they were mighty as individuals, but they were much more mighty as a team. Read 2 Samuel 23:8-39 in this light. Of course in those days and in that culture how many foes they had slain was the mark of achievement.

Nowadays we are still in battle, but the weapons of our warfare are generally not for hurting flesh and blood as in David’s day. Instead, they are mighty for keeping our minds and hearts free of all the junk and lies the world throws at them.3 These weapons help us take territory from the enemy of God, the devil, and those who serve him. Too many of our family, friends and neighbors have been deceived into unwittingly doing the enemy’s bidding.4 We must fight on their behalf.

Even the Mightiest Can Fall

David himself fell into his great sins of adultery with Bathsheba, and the cowardly murder of her husband Uriah, because he didn’t stick with his men. He went off alone. It was in the spring of the year when kings go out to battle that David stayed back in Jerusalem, vulnerable and alone. He separated himself from his men.3

Men need one another. Let’s never forget that. Culture says otherwise, but don’t listen to it. Culture says men function best as individuals, that we can choose our own destinies. This is not true. The African proverb proves right here: alone we can only run fast, but together is how we run far.

Running fast, being alone, may get us to a destiny first, but we will find no one is there to celebrate with us. No one shares our victory. Running far, in our own groups of Mighty Men, gets us all successfully to the end of the race. And we will be victorious.5 And we will all celebrate together.

1. Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)
2. 2 Timothy 1:7
3. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
4. 2 Samuel 11:1
5. Philippians 3:12

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soup with vegetables on white ceramic bowl

Homemade Soup

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The telly came on in the middle of a movie.

A mother was instructing her new daughter-in-law. ‘Let me show you how to make a proper soup for my son!’ Her tone was confident, knowing. It exuded warmth and familiarity. But he wasn’t paying attention to any of that. The phrase had opened a window to his past. The aromas of his mother’s kitchen seemed to float into the room.

He and Bea had just married and were visiting his childhood home as a couple for the first time. Mom pulled his young wife into the kitchen.

‘Let me show you a few tricks about how he likes things cooked,’ she said, smiling.

From the next room he could almost see the chill silence covering the room in frost. Bea drowned that offering of love in ice water, holding it down until it suffocated.

When the weekend was over and they motored home, he heard all about it.

‘How dare she do that! As though I don’t know how to cook for you,’ she said.

‘That wasn’t it at all. She was trying to be helpful. Help you love me even better than you do now.’ He smiled and turned to her. She continued to stare out the passenger window.

‘It was insulting,’ she said. ‘She could have asked.’

‘Mothers don’t ask, they tell. Does yours ask?’

No answer.

It was the first salvo in a war that escalated over the years, a war he’d had no idea was coming. His pre-marital expectations did not include this. Bea planted a grudge that day, and watered it and nursed it until it sprang up and choked the life out of any chance Dad and Mom had of getting her to receive their love. It finally grew into a huge tree on which Bea tacked up a sign saying, You don’t truly love me so let’s not pretend.

She painted that declaration in the blood of her own childhood wounds. Will realized too late that Bea had grown up in a conditional family, where love was doled out as deemed earned. They were always all at odds. They were all orphans. They weren’t a family. They were a group of snipers.

Where suspicion reigns, each loving gesture is perceived as a threat. Broken lives take input for insult. Bea’s heart had been broken long before Will had met her. Sadly, he didn’t realize how those broken pieces would be like glass, cutting all who trod on them.

Will’s heart was broken too, although he didn’t learn that until years later. When he did, and began to heal, a rift opened between them. She wanted no part of that healing. And so they drifted apart. He marched toward health, while she slid toward increasing bitterness and isolation.

As their marriage broke down and fell apart, he watched the leaves on her tree of resentment wither and fall off. They littered the ground between them.

In his dreams, after the divorce, he had long conversations with her about much of what had transpired between them. He could speak of his failings and mistakes, but she could not. She had nothing to say to his imagination. Sadly, he realized he never actually knew her. She was unwilling to be known.

Will had acknowledged his own mistakes and the acceptance of each one hurt him badly. He prayed for release and forgiveness, knowing he’d likely never receive it from Bea, even if they ever spoke again.

On a walk years later, a leaf drifted out of an empty sky, landing at his feet. He stooped and turned it over. That settled the matter.

He then straightened and moved forward.

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