"For if you are going to know who you truly are as a man, if you are going to find a life worth living, if you are going to love a woman deeply and not pass on your confusion to your children, you simply must get your heart back."

- John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

I know what you might be thinking when you read a quote like that.

For a lot of men, any conversation about the heart is an instant "eye roll" or "here we go again with this soft stuff!" kind of feeling.  I get it!  I really do.

But bear with me for a minute because I think John's on to something incredibly important for us men that we need to hear.  If you find that this doesn't apply to - great!  No harm, no foul.  

But what if it does?  What if you're one of the millions of men who is dealing with some of the common things that are keeping you back from the life that Jesus offers and you don't even know that your heart is the real issue?

Let's look at some of the signs or symptoms and see...

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life."  John 3:16

Maybe you've heard that before.

Maybe, though, you wrestle with if it's actually true for you.

Sure, God loves the world - but me?  Little ol' me?  Insignificant me?  Continuing-to-fall-in-sin me?

For some men, this struggle is very real!  They believe that "God is love" and they recognize his loving kindness in their lives in many ways.  But to genuinely believe that he not only knows you but loves you like he loves Jesus?  

That's just too much for some of us to truly believe.

Here are 8 signs that this may be true for you and 2 ways to deal with this issue:

• You secretly don't like yourself or you struggle to know who you really are
• You're tormented by voices from your childhood 
• You're constantly looking for (and desperate for) approval from others
• You're critical of others
• You...

Disclaimer:  Today's conversation is based on an idea I stole from a message from Pastor Jonathan Pokluda.  I am including the video of this talk at the bottom of this blog post and beg you to PLEASE LISTEN to it after you read this!  It's so good and so needed!  I have taken the ideas that I am sharing here from his message, but I came up with my own C's for this blog.  So, hopefully, you will benefit even more from both his thoughts and mine.  

Loving a woman.  That's a tall order, isn't it!  How do we do that?  Where do we even begin?  

For many men, it begins with a ring.  An engagement ring, to be exact.  In today's conversation, we are going to use the same ideas for finding a quality engagement ring to help us find clues about loving a woman.

So how do you find a good diamond ring to give to your lady?  There are 4 C's that you'll need to know about.

1. Cut   2....