What is the measure of a man?
Part of Reverend Col Stringer’s message yesterday of how the world today is perpetuating a generation of the selfish. Seeing how we are surrounded by so many avenues of instant self-gratification, I’d have to agree. He also spoke of how the dissolution of family has contributed to this worrying trend, where young men are not men but boys adrift in a sea where their fathers have not anchored them.
What results is men not knowing how to be men.. but how could they know, when their own fathers have failed at their responsibilities to be leaders, mentors and examples? They are sons, paying for the sins of their fathers.
The message Rev Stringer shared has been something on my heart for a long time, even since the start of this year. It was such a joy to hear him speak of this. I sat there, in the auditorium, leaning forward in a manner no doubt inspired by the hunger within to hear and listen. I loved how he was real and such a straight-shooter.
It’s true. More than we need to be taught, we need to be trained. It’s not something we can just soak up overnight – it has to more than merely fill our heads and the underused grey machine residing within. It has to be exercised, put through the motions, it has to be something we speak of and do because this how we learn and becomes something instinctive.
So often in the news, we read of men beating their wives.. or pushing them on the path of an oncoming train.. or when we hear men travelling to Batam to pay for sex with children.. or of women in search of future coming to our shores and finding themselves tricked into prostitution. A hundred tales, a thousand tears, ten thousand sorrows. It’s all there.
But this is not how the world should be.
Do you feel the same? Do we just shake our heads at the sadness of it all and not wonder what has been festering in their hearts to cause to act thus?
In his article, ‘The Crisis of Manliness‘, Newell states something similar to what Rev Stringer shared in yesterday’s message:
“One thing is sure: Given our current confusion over the meaning of manliness, we have nothing to lose by re-opening the issue. If academic feminism is correct that violence toward women stems from traditional patriarchal attitudes, our grandparents’ lives must have been a hell of aggression and fear. Yet, if anything impresses us about our forebears, judging from their lives, letters and diaries, it is the refinement of their affections for one another — and of men’s esteem for women in particular.”
Newell’s article is eloquently expressed and defines the roots of the problem of the lack of manliness or masculinity. Mohler in a Boundless article presents his opinion on this ‘crisis’ in ‘A New Corruption of Masculinity‘ and offers his take on biblical masculinity in ‘For Guys Only: The Marks of Manhood‘. Rev Stringer yesterday also brought up the interesting notion of there traditionally being no notion of ‘teenhood’ – a boy was a man when he turned thirteen, evidenced in the Judaistic ritual of the bar mitzvah – while Alex and Brett Harris discuss this trend of unnaturally prolonged immaturity in ‘Addicted to Adultescence‘.
To me, one of the hallmarks of adulthood, or manhood in particular, is that you are called to accountability and responsibility. To love, honour and respect.
If you’re thinking that it is a too tall order for us to carry out, then remember what Rev Stringer also said: the gift of God’s grace means we are given maximum potential. (Was it Rev Stringer who once said that our potential in Jesus is 100%, in a sermon many years ago?) It simply means that whatever we thought impossible to do in our own self and by our own strength, is now possible by the grace of God.
It is the grace of God that will allow us to become the men he has called us to be (2 Peter 1:3-4). Not by our might or power, but by His grace alone.
Like what Rev Stringer shared about as well, I also believe that as men, we’re called to honour and respect women (1 Timothy 5:2). For me, I grew up reading lots of fantasy books which was where I came across the notion of chivalry.. I’m reminded of Arterburn and Stoeker’s book, ‘Every Young Man’s Battle’, where I came across this quote:
“In a newsletter, author and speaker Dr. Gary Rosberg told of seeing a pair of hands that reminded him of the hands of his father, who had gone on to heaven. Gary continued to reminisce about what his father’s hands meant to him. Then he shifted his thoughts to the hands of Jesus, noting this simple truth:
“They were hands that never touched a woman with dishonour.”
I pondered Gary’s words a little longer. Jesus’ hands never touched a woman with dishonour, but Jesus said lusting with the eyes is the same as touching. Given that Jesus is sinless, I suddenly realized that Jesus not only never touched a woman with dishonour, He never even looked at a woman in dishonour.”
That excerpt hit me to my very core and gave me food for thought. If I were a father, how would I want her to be treated by a young man courting her? If you are now pursuing the affections of a young lady, then do you realise that she is also the daughter of a father?
Earlier this year, I wrote about my thoughts of the film The Twilight Samurai, referring to Iguchi Seibei:
“Seibei, as we eventually come to learn, is a simple, unassuming man. His concerns centre completely around sustaining his family, even resorting to taking on odd-jobs like weaving insect cages (which was considered a woman’s work and shameful for men to do) for extra income. He carries a bokuto (wooden sword) in the guise of a real katana, having sold the sword passed down from his father, in order to pay for his wife’s funeral.
The implications of this are tremendous; a samurai’s katana is not only his weapon – it is a symbol of his authority and status, the personifaction of his identity as a samurai. Without his sword, a samurai is nothing.
Seibei, however, does not appear to be perturbed by this, and confides to his closest friend Iinuma that he wishes to relinquish his samurai status, preferring to live as a farmer and watch his daughters grow up.”
In my eventual post (‘Treasure in the Man‘) which I shared about the journey Abba was taking me, I wrote:
“Man’s opinion of us will always waver, but the way Abba sees us and all these ’small’ acts is unchanging: heartbreakingly beautiful in Jesus Christ. This is why I can lift my head high and have a grin on my face even in the midst of these nondescript things I do, because I know my Father’s heart for me.
Perhaps this is why I find such affinity in Seibei’s character in The Twilight Samurai. I see the love he bears for his family, that he would give up his samurai status to preserve the life he shares with them. He sought not glory won with the sword, one of the driving forces of a samurai, but to love and care for his family.
I think that I want to be that kind of man to my wife and children. I choose not to dwell or seek after the worldly things such as money, a high-powered career, what to eat or wear; instead I want to love my wife and delight in my children just as Abba loves and delights in me. All other things will be added unto my life, just as He promised.”
I thank Abba for the reminder and affirmation in the message shared by Rev Stringer. I know that this journey I am on is not coincidental, but without a doubt, every step planned by God. I read through those old entries again, and I find myself still wanting the same things that I wrote about ten months ago:
With all that said, I just want to be a man, an ordinary one who is content with the simple pleasures that life has to offer… an ordinary one in himself, but made extraordinary only by the grace of the living God. A man who walks by the Spirit, who realises the utter weakness of his flesh and yet knows with conviction the immeasurable extent of his Abba’s ability to assume authority in all aspects of his life in the place of his own inability.
Ito, Seibei’s daughter, says this of her father at the end of the film:
“In the new Meiji era, many men who had worked with my father rose to positions of great authority. I often heard them say, ‘Twilight Seibei was an unlucky man’.
“But I do not agree.
“My father had no desire to rise in the world, and I don’t think he considered himself unlucky. He loved his daughters and the beautiful Tomoe loved him.
“His life, I think, was short but full.
“I am proud to have had such a father.”
By the grace of God, and knowing that I can never accomplish anything apart from Jesus, I find myself wanting to be that kind of father to my own children.
Directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Jesus Camp follows several young children to the charismatic-oriented ‘Kids on Fire’ camp at Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. The camp is run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International, and the film focuses on three children who attend the camp – Levi, 12, Tory, 10 and Rachael, 9.
