For Dad
We are now wrapping up month 3 in Riga, Latvia and over these last few weeks, I've read the book Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. The book is all about the masculine heart of a man, the wounds he suffers as a boy, how those wounds change and influence his life, and what he can do to take his life back. John lays it out early in his book, "In the heart of every man is the desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue." I could write this blog to 3-4 thousand words about this book, in fact, I've already written this blog about 5 times over, writing, deleting, rewriting. If you really want to know all about the book, then go pick it up and read it, because it changed my life. Rather than talking about what the book says, I will write this blog about what I learned from it.
I'm just going to say it: My parents weren't perfect. And guess what? Neither were yours. Your family, boyfriend/girlfriend, and your friends aren't perfect either. Face it, if you live on planet earth, you've been hurt in some way, shape or form by people that are close to you. If reading Wild at Heart taught me anything, it is that every boy grows up suffering some kind of wound(s). He suffers them at (most commonly) his parents, but also his friends and the world around him. No matter how big or seemingly small the wounds are, they influence him. In my case, my wounds were small, but they were forgotten and buried under years of guilt, shame and sin. Do I blame a single person who wounded me? No. "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" ring any bells? Everyone is wounded. We make mistakes out of our wounds. We lash out amidst misunderstanding, we are angry in our fear. We say things without thinking them all the way through. People can be down right mean, no doubts there, but it's not necessarily their fault, and your wounds aren't necessarily your fault either.
In Malawi, God showed me that relationship is everything. This revelation brought a lot of freedom into my life, but there's another side to this coin. In the middle of a Latvian youth gathering, a pastor was speaking about struggles, condemnation, sin, identity, etc, and in the middle of the pastor's message, everything instantly clicked together:
If God's absolute top priority is relationship with you, then Satan's top priority is your division from God in every possible way.
As I write this, it seems to simple. But take a minute, right now, to really think about it. The further you are from God, the less you know about yourself, the easier you give in to the world and its temptations and pleasures. Satan's purpose for his onslaught on the entire human race to steal, kill and destroy. He doesn't want your marriage to be a godly one. He doesn't want you to have loving friends and family, or live in tight community where anyone would gladly sacrifice for the benefit of another. Satan is against everything that you and God are for.
I struggled in finding my identity for a long time, even into my mid 20's. In previous blogs, I've mentioned my addiction to pornography. It was bad. I lived under a cloud of shame and guilt for years, so many, in fact, that I lost count. I didn't know, deep in my heart, that I was really a man. I was convinced that I did not "have what it takes." I wanted the girl without really fighting for her, and I didn't want to risk rejection, so I went the easy route and turned to porn. I had been lied to. For so long, I tried to overcome sin by my own will and discipline and fell flat on my face every time. An addiction to pornography is an addiction to passivity. It's a cop out to being a real man. It is the refusal to face fear, risk, danger and uncertainty. Pornography is sabotage. By the grace of God, I've been free from pornography for 8 months –Praise Jesus– by a couple of God plot twists in my life story. I got a girlfriend and moved in with my pastor and his wife. The choice was simple and there was no way I was going to 'cheat' on my girlfriend or defile my pastor's house with that crap. But the light bulb really went on when I read Wild at Heart and realized a man's battle with sexual sin (I.e. pornography) isn't so much about sin as it is about a battle for his strength as a man.
If the enemy is successful in stripping you of your identity as a man (or woman), it's crippling. For all those years, the enemy had me living under a lie that I didn't have to fight for the beauty, that I didn't need to risk anything, that I didn't need adventure. All I needed to do was play the nice guy, don't be wild or dangerous, be safe, have a career that pays well, climb the corporate ladder, buy a house and a nice car and have lots of cool stuff. Be passive.
God convinced me to go on the World Race by simply telling me "I want to show you the world." You can bet that when I first heard the call, I weighed the risks. "Can I do it?" Now that I think about it, it's kind of funny how God told me to go, because Jesus told people things like that all the time in His day. All He'd have to say is "Follow me" and people would drop everything they were doing, right then, to follow Him, no questions asked. After all the time has passed since hearing about the race, some 11 months ago, looking back on it all, I now know why God really called me on the Race: To bestow His masculinity to me. That's how a boy learns to be a man. He spends time with his father, learning by hearing, seeing, and doing what He sees his father doing. Boys wrestle with their dads, test their strength against their dad's strength, talk with their dads in close relationship. This is how a boy knows if he is or isn't a man.
My Dad is a huge, strong, 6'3" man, and he can do anything. He told me once "When I put my shoulder to the wheel, it turns." Period. Boom. And that's the kind of man he is to the letter: Superman. My Dad is the epitome of strength and everything I know about work, strength and perseverance I learned from him. Nothing against my Dad, I love him with all my heart, but God is taking me way beyond just physical strength this year. God called me out of the United States to remove me from all distractions and comforts, to purposefully create opportunities when I would be challenged, where I would have to wrestle with Him and test my strength against His. This year, we will spend many intimate moments together, and God will say, "Hey Son, choose me. Come hang out with me. I love you and I'm going to show you how to be a man. I'm going to challenge you and test your strength, but I know you can do it. I'm proud of you." After all, that's what every boy wants to hear from his Father: that he is a man.
