"We've heart ad infititum that men are rational beings, along with the supporting evidence that our brains work differently than do women's, and that is true. Spatial abstractions, logic, analysis - men tend to excel in these because we are more left- than right-brained, and the commissural fibers that connect the two hemispheres appear in women in ratios far higher than in men. Women have an interstate uniting both sides of their brains. Men have a game trail. Thus men tend to compartmentalize, a capacity that allows men to handle the atrocities of war, and administrate justice. It also makes them excellent chess players and auto mechanics. And yet ... I don't buy it. Too many men hide behind reason and logic. A man must grow beyond mere reason, or he will be stunted as a man, certainly as a Lover. No woman wants to be analyzed, and many marriages fail because the man insists on treating her as a problem to be solved, rather than a mystery to be known and loved."
Plain and simple, to be whole and complete, we have to embrace something beyond reason. We have to realize there will be things we can't figure out, or even explain. There will be times we will be speechless, and remain speechless. And we have to be ok with the mystery and wonder of the unknown. To some degree, we must lose ourselves in it. There are so many things in life that are beyond understanding, and so many more in faith.
"The Lover is awakened when a man comes to see that the poetic is far truer than the propositional and the analytical, and whatever physiology might say, I've seen it happen in many men." As I read this I kept thinking back to my college Theology class. Back then I wanted to be a pastor more than anything, I wanted to get out into a church and start changing the world. I had a great professor, one of the wisest and most passionate men I've ever met, and yet more often than not, during class I found myself looking out the window at on open field and the woods that surrounded it.
At this point in college I had experienced God personally, and, not meaning to sound proud, in ways many church goers have never imagined. I wasn't really interested in man's study about God; I wanted to know God personally. I would much rather have been out in that field with my Bible than in a class. And if I'm perfectly honest, I don't remember the last time I used anything from Theology class in real life. But the personal experiences I've had with God in the woods, or late night prayer sessions, those are the stories I share.
I'm not saying anything against education or the study of Theology, but again, let's think about which one I've used more, and which one had a deeper impact on me. "For that which draws us to the heart of God is that which often first lifts our own hearts above the mundane, awakens longing and desire. And it is that life, my brothers, the life of your heart, that God is most keenly after."
What would you rather have, a head knowledge of God, filled with words most of the people alive today can't understand, or a personal relationship, rooted in personal experiences with Him? What would you rather your children have? And it is here that we come to perhaps the point of not just the masculine journey, but of life overall. We are to be "not merely a Christian, but something more - a lover of God."
The point of this journey is not for us to be moral men, or really nice guys. We've looked at this countless times over the past few months. No boy aspires to that. But the point is for us to be powerful and dangerous men who passionately love God. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 16.13-14, "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love." Power, strength passion. We are to be Warrior poets. This is what God is after.
"I began to realize that he cared for my heart. God was pursuing me ... wooing me. My pursuit of beauty had turned around on me. It had become God's pursuit of me." This happened to me. When I first started college I was like just about every other religion major I've ever met, cocky, thinking I had it all figured out. Fortunately for me, I was one that God go a hold of (sadly not all of them can say this). As I was trying to gain the knowledge I would need to lead a Church, which for me at the beginning was just fine tuning a skill set, God was at work. It took a little over two years, but finally He got through to me. I don't have time to tell the story here, but when I finally woke up, God began to speak to me, and show me things about Him that I never knew a person needed to think about.
"A lover has been awakened by the Great Romancer. At this stage a man's relationship with God opens a new frontier. While in other realms God will remain Father, and Initiator, when the Lover begins to emerge God invites the man to become his 'intimate one.' This is the crucial stage. The danger for the Warrior is that life becomes defined by battle, and that is not good for the soul nor is it true to our story, for there is something deeper than battle and that, my friends, is Romance."
There is a scene from Secondhand Lions that I keep thinking about. Hub, Walter's uncle, is found every night out by the pond on their property, sleep walking. Garth, his brother tells Walter one night that he's "Looking for her. Jasmine." As the story unfolds we learn of the true love, the deep passion these two shared, but Garth refuses to tell Walter what happened to her. One night, out by the water, Walter wakes Hub up and asks him. He tells her "She died. Died in child birth. Her and the baby." Walter, knowing the love the two shared asks, as he fights back tears, "What did you do?" His reply, "I went back to the only life I knew, back to the Legion. For the next forty years there was always one more war to fight. Then I got old and came here. Here I am." Without beauty, there is nothing but battle, and you can only fight for so long. As the movie unfolds we see that Hub is restless, and searching for the next adventure, because there is no beauty in his life.
We were made for love and beauty. We were made for something more than just a head knowledge, ritualistic religion. We were made for a passionate relationship with God. "Ours is a love story. Anything short of it is a Christianity of dry bones."
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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