"When it comes to awakening, healing, maturing the Lover in a boy and in a man, I am almost at a loss for words... Truth be told, each of these chapters deserves a whole book in its own right, but this - so close to the heart, so close to the heart of God - alas, there is so much to say. For we enter the realm of mystery when we enter the realm of the Lover, and our hope is in the Great Romancer, who pursues us."
It bears reminding that this stage, as with all of them, is ultimately about God. As Beloved Sons we see and know Him as our powerful and loving Father. AS Cowboys we see experience Him as one who guides us into adventure, work, and an Epic Story. As Warriors we come to serve Him as our King, serving something bigger than ourselves. And now here, as Lovers, we come to an intimacy with God that is only possible at this point in the journey. He has been pursuing us our whole lives to bring us to this point.
There are things we can do in order to help our sons be ready for this moment, and things we can do to help ourselves heal and enter this stage as well. "The story of the Lover in any man's life is the story of love and beauty, romance and sexuality. Hopefully in that order." We all know that doesn't always take place, and it's becoming far more infrequent that it does. And when it doesn't happen in that order we must journey back and allow God to untangle it all.
Many of us need to do that. We need to allow God to father us as Beloved Sons so that we can heal and become Lovers of God. In the past year I've experienced a lot of that. It was only recently that I began to understand why things worked out the way they did, but the ultimate purpose was to allow God to father me as only He can. And having received this blessing, I am better able to help others experience it as well. And when the time comes, I am better able to father my sons.
"When he is a boy, the greatest gift he can be given is to know that his heart matters, matters very, very much. For one, it will encourage him to keep his heart as a living treasure, and not bury it so that forty years later he has to go on an archaeological dig to try to uncover it. Knowing his heart matters and matters deeply will also keep him from turning to the woman to know that he is beloved, a turn far too many of us have taken and from which many of us have not been able to find our way back. To live in a world of love when you are young enables you to love freely when you are grown."
The love of his father is crucial, because it is from the love that he finds there that his view of God will be shaped. If his heart is valued he won't hide it, but learn to live from it. His passions will come out, and he'll learn to live fully alive from the beginning. He'll see the love that his father has for him, exactly the way he is, how the things that he cares about his father also cares about, and he'll learn to see that in God as well. He'll see God as one who loves him deeply, and has his best interest at heart. He'll see that God gave him his passions, and wants him to live them out. And as a boy learns to love, and be loved by his father, he'll learn what it means to love and be loved by God.
"As for Beauty, when does the aesthetic conversion come? That is hard to say. I suppose it need not come at all if the boy has been raised with a Lover's heart all his life, for in that case what conversion is needed? And yet ... that is rare, if for no other reason than the stark reality that the love affair between man and God, and between man and woman, has an enemy, who ever seeks to ruin the Romance by shutting down the heart or trapping it in any way he can. On the other hand, we have undertaken this journey believing that we have a kind, strong, and engaged Father, a Father wise enough to guide us in the Way, generous enough to provide for our journey, offering to walk with us every step. What that means for this stage is that our Lover has been wooing us all our lives."
I think the thing here is that we come to identify God as the source of everything good, true, and beautiful. We become awakened to the depth and mystery of Him in ways we never have before. There is an enemy who doesn't want this to happen, he doesn't want us to find intimacy with God, and that is why we must first be warriors, so that we can fight for beauty. But we come to see that God desires this intimacy with us. We aren't pursuing someone who is playing hard to get and in the end breaks our hearts. We are fighting for a relationship with someone who desires deeper intimacy with us than we could have ever known. And here we see that "the Romancer has been wooing us all our lives, from when we were very young. There were things that pierced your heart as a boy - a special place, a book, a picture - and you might not have known it then, but that was God awakening the Lover in you."
As I read that I tried to think about my time as a boy, and honestly, I don't know of anything that hit me like that. But over the last few years I've started to become more aware of beauty. I've taken several hiking trips at the Ledges in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I've had the chance to wade, and canoe, some gorgeous rivers, and backpack some breathtaking beaches and sand dunes. I have a vision in my mind for a piece of ground some day. And in all of it I've really started to see God, and more importantly, have my heart stirred for Him in new ways. I've felt Him calling out my passions, and inviting me to live from the heart, fully alive.
And this is something I want my sons to know all their lives. "It would be good to cultivate creativity in the boys, and also wonder (the forerunner of romance)... Your attitude determines so much, for if he sees you embrace creativity and passion, and knows you admire it in him, the boy will blossom... Not every attempt of ours to raise any of the stages in our sons will be met with instant success. It takes time, and what rouses your heart may not rouse the heart of your son. So we must look for those things that do."
Just as God delights in our hearts, we must also delight in our the hearts of our sons, no matter what their passions are. We must teach them that they are important to us, we love what they love because they love it. Seeing this shows them they are loved, and prepares the way for them to fully and freely love God.
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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