I grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt of the States. My youth group held the most attended events at the largest church in the community.
Yet, I never really knew what a “man of God” my age looked like until college. Why is that?
I watched so many of my guy friends in high school be placed in two categories:
Church kids: boys who attend every Sunday School class, Sunday worship, and Wednesday night youth group. Boys who form their own click with “church girls” at church and school. These kids grew up together and are involved in all of the same extra curricular activities. Their parents serve on the PTA or volunteer at church events. If you didn’t meet this criteria, you didn’t have a chance at being in the group. These boys never talk about the sins they commit late at night when their computer screen lights up their room. They never admit their struggle between the “church kid” life and the wonder behind the party scene. They stick to their click and allow young men walk past them every day in the halls — young men that struggle with pornography, pride, womanizing, depression, suicidal thoughts, being unseen, being caught up in the need to fit in. But how could they come alongside and walk beside young men who need a friend when they never admit they’ve struggled with these sins themselves?
The boys you don’t bring home to momma: these are the boys who hit the backroads with their yeti’s full of beer and a fifth of Crown in the back of the passengers seat. They smoke, do drugs, and compare their conquests in the locker room. High school for them is all about soaking in the glory and living the high life.
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule and those who lie in between. There are the boys who (just like girls) are at church on Sunday mornings after 3 hours of sleep from the party on Saturday night because “in this household we go to church.” And there are the boys who chose a moral life and have never heard what it looks like to truly know God.
What I’ve never been able to let go of or move past is the friends I saw in high school return from church camp or have someone hand them a bible and tell them about Jesus and decide to completely change their lives. They got a taste of what it’s like to have the living God pursing through their veins. They gave up their friends, “going out” on the weekends, the alcohol, and the weed. There are also the friends who years later find themselves on the back pew in desperation for something new because they woke up in the hospital last week from alcohol poisoning. By some miracle of God they have someone walk up to them and share a word from God specifically for them that leads them to walk that isle for the first time and give their life to God. Yet, in weeks time both types of friends have backslid right back into the sin that holds them captive. The devil whispers in their ear they’ll never escape this lifestyle, conquer this sin, or experience life better than this.
Watching young men in my town try to fight against the world and for a life for God is like playing a game of “wack-a-mole.” One doesn’t pop up long enough for you to catch em’.
So here I stand, 5 years after my high school graduation. I pose the question I never had the guts to ask then, “Where are you men of courage?”
Where are you church kids? What are you doing with your Christlike upbringing if it’s not disciplining men to become men of God? What part of the life of Jesus Christ did He spend surrounding himself with the Pharisees and church leaders?
News flash: He spent His time mentoring, loving, and challenging the prostitutes, money launderers, and drug dealers.
For those reading this that have once, recently or many years ago, found yourself unsatisfied or convicted with the way of life this world offers, and chose to take a stand for something that matters — to take a stand for the one that paid it all for you — only to find yourself glued to your seat once again because you were the only one standing, I want you to consider something. The number one thing I’ve heard over and over again that is the hardest part of giving up your desires to follow Christ for young men is that they soon find themselves standing alone. But if each person that stood would just stay standing, you wouldn’t have to stand alone.
Have you ever heard the saying “all it takes is 5 seconds of insane courage?”
I’m asking you to take those 5 seconds of insane courage and build them into minutes, days, weeks, months, and years of insane courage.
For you don’t see it now, but your one decision to go against the waves of this world and take a stand for the One that took a stand for you, will be the one thing that encourages others to stand and stay standing.
Isn’t the Gospel of Jesus Christ worth that?
People say there are no guys like that in my hometown. I challenge you men, STAND, put away your cowardly ways and start making some ripples in this constant flow of disappointment and defeat. Stop settling for mediocrity and lukewarm Christianity.
For all of us are called to change the world, only a few of us choose to answer.
Remember: He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world.
The power of the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.
Band together brothers. We aren’t called to forever run this race alone.
— just a messenger for my guy friends, brothers, and those I’ve lost far too soon.
