We've all heard the expression "He's a self-made man". In our world it's something we hold up as a standard of masculinity. A guy who has defied all the odds on his own with now help and has made something of himself. We look at these guys with respect and in many ways we desire to be like them, but honestly they should be pitied.
A self-made man is really just "an orphaned man who figured how to master some part of life on his own." The father failed to be a daddy and no one stepped in to take his place. The boy was left on his own to try to make it, and so he has figured out what he is good at and used that to his advantage. It isn't his fault, he's done what he's had to, but that isn't the way it is supposed to be.
"We aren't meant to figure life out on our own. God wants to father us. The truth is, he has been fathering us for a long time - we just haven't had the eyes to see it. He wants to father us much more intimately, but we have to be in a pasture to receive it."
This can be difficult, but it is essential. A boy who has been abandoned to figure it out on his own is used to going it alone, not having anyone to watch his back, not having anyone to help him when things get overwhelming. He's trained himself to not need help, and when it comes he often rejects it out of pride, anger, hurt, and mistrust. But we have to learn to drop our guard if we are to men who are fully alive and living from true strength, not a few skills.
"First, we allow that we are unfinished men, partial men, mostly boy inside, and we need initiation." This is where the pride hinders us. We don't want to admit that we need help, that we need something from someone, that there is something we can't take care of ourselves.
"Second, we turn from our independence and all the ways we either charge at life or shrink from it; this may be one of the most basic and the most crucial ways a man repents." And this is where anger, hurt and mistrust come in to play. Anger doesn't want to change, it's stubborn and enjoys being angry. Anger blindly charges in to a situation doing much more harm than good.
The hurt and mistrust from the past are what cause us to shrink back from help that is offered. We feel that no one will ever help and not hurt us, that at some point they too will abandon us. These things cause us to shrink back, hide from anything that our one or two skills can't handle, or might not be able to handle. Anything that is a challenge we aren't sure to overcome we run from for fear of exposure.
"We must be willing to take an enormous risk, and open our hearts to the possibility that God is initiation us as men - maybe even in the very things in which we thought he'd abandoned us. We open ourselves up to being fathered. I'll admit it doesn't come easily."
We tend to associate God with our earthly father. If he was cold and distant that's how we see God. If he was angry and abusive we expect God to be the same way. If he was a constant critic who was never satisfied we feel God isn't either. It isn't easy to open up and trust someone you don't think will be there, or doesn't care. It isn't easy to be led by someone you don't believe has your best interest at heart, or to open up to someone you don't feel is a safe haven. "The more we've become accustomed to seeking life apart form God, the more 'abnormal and stressful' it seems 'to look for God directly.' Especially as a Father, fathering us."
We have to learn to see God in a new way, through His eyes, not ours. We must realize that unlike our earthly fathers, God cannot and does not fall short. He does not abandon, He does not criticize, He is not angry or abusive. He is the loving Father who picks us up when we fall down, who offers correction and encouragement when we mess up, and offers an intimacy that we all crave. But most of all God offers us initiation.
"A man's life is a process of initiation into true masculinity." In the beginning of the creation everything was perfect. Man lived from a true source of strength and identity in who he was to God. He learned from God, but then the day of his testing came, and he failed miserably. The relationship was broken, his strength was lost, and we've all been suffering ever since. But in this we see the love of God.
At that moment He began the story of restoration. He began working to heal and deliver fallen creation from sin. Everything is working to bring creation back to Eden, it is a process but it is leading back to the way things were meant to be. And in the same way our lives are a process that is leading us to where we were meant to be. Everything that happens is God initiating us into true masculinity.
"So much of what we misinterpret as hassles or trials or screw-ups on our part are in fact God fathering us, taking us through something in order to strengthen us, or heal us, or dismantle some unholy thing in us. In other words, initiate us - a distinctly masculine venture."
I have a friend, one of my brothers, who has recently been through a break up. He told me how he felt like he had screwed it all up. I told him, "No you didn't, it just wasn't supposed to work out." And in that he has begun to see how God is using this to bring healing from other things in the past. It's part of his initiation, and nothing is wasted with God.
In my own life, having to move back into my parents house at first seemed like the worst punishment ever. But in this time God has brought healing into my own life. He took me back to the place where hurt and anger happened so that He could break it all down. It's part of my initiation, and nothing is wasted with God.
The things we go through are not meant to destroy us, but to mold us into Christlikeness, and into Men of God. Sometimes it requires a world shattering moment to get us started. Other times it involves taking us to the place of pain in order to heal and strengthen. And other times it involves challenging us in ways we don't think we are capable of overcoming. But all of it is God working to make into the men He created us to be. This whole process of initiation, this life long journey, is taking us back to how it was all supposed to be, God made men.
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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