A man's wounded heart: Fathers pay attention!
Do I have what it takes?
Am I powerful enough to handle this?
Am I real man?
These are the questions that men wrestle with along their journey of life. And, as John Eldredge says in his book, Wild at Heart, "Men are haunted by the question(s) or crippled by the answer."
Haunted By The Question
I remember my own story (one of many stories!) of wrestling with these questions. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade and there was a kid at school who kept teasing me and making me scared. That probably wasn't hard because I was afraid of everything! But, it was really bothering me and somehow it got mentioned when I was home one day.
I remember talking to my dad about this and, with my dad being a godly man and a soft-hearted guy, I really thought I knew what he would say.
"Son, you just gotta walk away. Boys can be mean but Christians walk away and be 'the bigger man'".
But that's not what he said. Instead, it was more like this:
"Son, I don't EVER want you starting fights. But...(here it comes I thought)...if that kid comes back to you again the next day and starts doing that stuff again you tell him to knock it off and try to avoid it. But if you can't and he won't leave you alone and starts to fight you - you punch him as hard as you can right in the nose!"
I couldn't believe it. My kind, Christian, dad just told me it was okay to fight back and punch a dude!
Now, I know...what about "turn the other cheek"? I get it. But I have to tell you something: I needed to hear this message at that time in my life! There was something about it that made me feel like a man should feel. I was haunted by the question and didn't know if I had what it takes to be brave and tough and strong enough to take on the bully. But my dad injected that into me and it was good for me know it.
Crippled By The Answer
These moments are no small thing for a boy. A father speaking strength into a scared son's life is so crucial for the journey he will take for the rest of his life. So many boys are missing these moments and it is crippling them for the rest of their lives.
A boy desperately needs to hear a man say to him, "You can handle this. You've got this! You can do it - you've got what it takes!"
Maybe it's not a father but it can absolutely be a father-figure. Maybe a coach, a pastor, an uncle, or friend's dad who can come alongside him and speak strength into his heart. No matter where it comes from, it's needed.
The questions will come and they need to be answered by an affirming and resounding - "Yes! You can do this. You've got the heart of man and God is with you!"
The Wounds
John tells a story of a boy named Charles who vividly remembers the first wounds he received from his father. They weren't physical, but the pain has lasted much longer than any physical wound could.
"...Charles loved to play the piano, but his father and brothers were jocks. One day they came back from the gym to find him at the keyboard, and who knows what else had built up years of scorn and contempt in his father's soul, but his son received both barrels: "You are such a faggot." (his dad said)."
That's a wound that never heals.
Sometimes, though, it's more subtle than that. Some fathers are violent with their words and their fists but some assaults happen and we didn't even recognize that it happened. We just feel its effects deep inside our souls.
"Not receiving any blessing from your father is an injury...not seeing your father when you are small, never being with him, having a remote father, an absent father, a workaholic father, is an injury.
My friend Alex's father died when he was four years old. The sun in his universe set, never to rise again. How is a little boy to understand that? Every afternoon Alex would stand by the front window, waiting for father to come home. This went on for almost a year.
Some fathers give a wound merely by their silence; they are present, yet absent to their sons. The silence is deafening."
The wounded heart of a man is heavy thing!
I was one of the fortune ones that grew up with an amazing father. He was not so lucky, though. His father had a brain aneurism when my dad was only 4 years old and he couldn't speak a word to him for the rest of his life and ended up passing away in a VA hospital many years later.
No matter how good of a home you did or didn't have - you were wounded too. No man can escape it. It is simply a part of the broken world we were born into. But it's not just the wound. It's what came with it.
The Message
John explains in the book that no man can escape this life without having his heart wounded at least a little. But, in his experience, its a rare man who only hurts a little.
Why is this? Its because every wound comes with a message attached to it and it directly assaults the key questions of a man's heart: Am I enough? Do I have what it takes? Am I a real man?
"...and every wound, whether it's assaultive or passive, delivers with it a message. The message feels final and true, absolutely true, because it is delivered with such force. Our reaction to it shapes our personality in very significant ways. From that flows the false self. Most of the men you meet are living out a false self, a pose, which is directly related to his wound."
What are some of these messages?
- You're on your own.
- There's no one in your corner.
- You're not a real man.
And, as John said, these FEEL so true. They FEEL so absolute because our hearts absorbed the blows and we didn't know how to combat the message we received - so we just believed it must be so.
Where Do We Go From Here
So where do we go from here? How do most men respond to the wounded heart and the messages that came with it?
1. Overcompensate
They are driven in life and they try as hard as they can to say that they don't need anyone....they've got it figured out and they'll be okay without anyone else's help. They try to mask the wound with achievement, accomplishments, and production.
2. Go Passive
Or, they go passive and disengage from life. They won't fight back and they almost always back down. They retreat and can't commit to anything and play the victim.
For many men, its simply a mixture of both of these and they just never slow down to try to ask themselves why they are the way that they are. The message sticks in their heart and they live a life of a poser, a fake, or a fraud.
The Answer
"We know that our society produces a plentiful supply of boys, but seems to produce fewer and fewer men." - Robert Bly
He's right.
Get In The Fight is a response to this reality.
The answer to the wounded heart is to simply remind men of who God is and who they are in him! God made men they way that he did because the world is desperate for them to be the men that God meant for them to be!
No wonder there is such a fight in society and "gender confusion". This is a direct assault on God's design and the answer that world needs is not for men to sit by idly and shake their heads at how bad it is - but to, "Act like men. Be strong. Do everything in love." as our keystone verse says in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.
The key thing to understand is this:
The devil is afraid of Christian men playing their role as men.
Godly men are dangerous to the schemes and lies and propaganda that he spews. He knows that his time is limited and that there is real power in God's people - God's men, in particular. He's afraid that you and I will rise up and start to Get In The Fight again. Because when we do - he starts to lose ground.
THAT is the reason there is such a fight and the wound cuts so deep!
As we said in Podcast Episode #9, this life we are in is not a sitcom - it's more like Saving Private Ryan. It's bloody and messy and men are dying all around us.
The big question of life may be, "Do I have what it takes?". But God's incredible answer is, "Yes, you do! Through my strength and power, you have all that you need!"
So it's time to fight, men. It's time to get engaged in the battle for your heart and to let God heal it and recover it.
It's time to fight and start to win in every area of your life so that the people you love are safer from the darkness and God's light shines brighter as we advance his Kingdom agenda with strength.
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