What am I an advocate for? The question bounced around in my head as I tried to focus on the sermon. The pastor asked “What are you for?”. What does your life stand for? What are you an advocate for?
Half of me asks back, “what is the correct answer? what answer would make you feel better? What answer sounds best?” Another voice says, “you are an advocate for your own comfort and appetites, your ego, your pride, your lusts”, another voice says, “you advocate for your wife and child”.
Linnea (my wife) taps me, she points to a note on her bulletin, an arrow pointing toward me with the words “advocate for men/boys?”. I feel my forehead wrinkle, doesn’t quite sound right. I am not really an advocate for men or boys. My heart is after God’s heart, I advocate for what God advocates for. My heart is for women and children, my heart is for the widow and the orphan. My heart is for freedom, for wholeness, for justice and mercy. My heart is for order in this chaotic world. I am a man, my heart was designed to create life, to inject life into the world. My strength was designed to provide for and protect others.
My heart is for the widow and the orphan, but my direct ministry to women is to my wife. My direct ministry to children is to my son and the children of friends and family.
How do I as a man see my ministry to women and children? To the widow and orphan? I believe this will be best accomplished in my life by ministering to men. To helping men seek God, hear from God. How is this done? How do men encourage life in each other? How does God speak to us? I am not sure there is a real template, but what we just experienced is a good start. We just experienced what I believe God intended with the phrase “man time”.
What is this “man time”? Read my previous blog for our objectives, and my next few blogs for follow up. This experience was everything we hoped it would be. We are planning another one soon.
