Security provided by a father's strength is essential to boyhood, because it is a time of adventure and battle, "This is what the heart of a boy longs for - daring adventures, battles, uncharted territory to be discovered." Growing up I had a toy rifle that went everywhere with me. Somewhere between kindergarten and second grade I got a bow and arrow for Christmas, and eventually the toy got traded in for a BB gun. I had a fort in the backyard, and I was ready for an attack at all times.
My cousins and I would always turn something into a weapon. I remember getting in trouble with my aunt once because we were pretending a toy drill was a hand gun. Boys can, and will, turn anything into a weapon. The other day I cut a young maple tree into a walking stick. As I was looking at it I noticed a bump about ten inches down the shaft, thinking that's a nice length for a handle, and then I turned it over and was holding, and swinging, it like a two handed broad sword. Anything can become a weapon, it just takes some imagination, and boys have just such an imagination, "Which reminds us that the boy is also a warrior, and all those games he plays and battles he imagines are preparation for the day he enters the stage of the Warrior in its fullness."
"A boy wants to be powerful. That's what's behind the superhero thing. To be powerful, and dangerous, a force to be reckoned with - that is the heart of the Warrior emerging." Boys need the father's strength to allow this, to test theirs against, but more importantly to see how to use theirs. This time of boyhood and the warrior at play, is just preparation for the future. He is training and learning skills that he will need, maybe one day to literally save lives, under the watchful eye of a loving father. He is able to adventure because the father is there watching over him. He can take risks because the father is there to rescue him if needed. The security of the father's strength is essential.
Boyhood is also a time of surprises, of gifts from his father that show his love for him. I am not saying to spoil your son, that will do him no good. But you must show him that you delight in him. The bow and arrow was a great gift, as was the Barlow pocket knife I got on another occasion. Once my dad let me have an ax. We were watching home movies a while ago and my sister was like "Why would you give an 8 year old an ax?!" Gifts like this are important, they don't have to be big expensive things, the ax was lying around in the shed, they just need to be things that speak to the heart of your son. "This, too, lays a foundation in the heart of the boy, for he comes to learn that life is not something you have to arrange for. There is someone who cares, someone who wants to give you good gifts."
I believe he talks about this in the book, but he shares the verse about giving good gifts to your children and our Father in Heaven giving good gifts to us. We see the desire of God to bless us in the actions of our fathers. In their generosity we see the generosity of God, and in them knowing our hearts and giving gifts that speak to our hearts, we see that God too cares about who we really are. God gave us our passions, and He wants us to live them out.
"Its experiences like these that speak to the heart of a boy. You are noticed. Your heart matters. Your father adores you. For we must remember that above all else, boyhood is the time of Affirmation, the time when a boy comes to learn and learn deeply that he is the Beloved Son... "Do I have what it takes? is a core question to be sure, and I still hold that it is the vital question of the masculine journey. But there is a deeper and prior need, one that comes first - in this stage - and one that must be met first, or the boy cannot move with confidence into any of the other stages. A boy yearns to know that he is prized... He yearns to know he is adored. Uniquely. That he holds a special place in his father's heart, a place no one and nothing else can rival. Without this certainty down in the core of his being, the boy will misinterpret the stages and lessons that are to come, for as a young man (Cowboy) he will soon be tested, and he will face battle sand challenges as a Warrior, and those tests and challenges often feel to men like a form of rejection or cold-heartedness on the part of God, because he does not first know in his heart of hearts that he is the Beloved Son."
This is where the journey begins, and it is crucial that it starts on the right foot. A boy must know that he is loved by his father if he is to grow into a man. If he has this heart knowledge, he can move on with confidence. "Without this bedrock of affirmation, this core of assurance, a man will move unsteadily through the rest of his life, trying to prove his worth and earn belovedness through performance or achievement, through sex, or in a thousand other ways."
This is how we were meant to begin life, but for many of us, sadly, this is not the experience we remember.
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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