"I wanna be that man"

Often times artists--be they painters, cartoonists, film-makers, or novelists--capture in a few moments what theologians can't communicate in tomes.

Here's a song. Let it move you to purpose in your heart to be that man for your woman. For your children.

For Christ.

Shallow man

Does not wisdom cry out,
 

And understanding lift up her voice? 

She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
 

Beside the way, where the paths meet. 

She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
 

At the entrance of the doors...

Proverbs 8:1-3

We are shallow, and we don't care.

As America swirls with greater speed into the porcelain abyss, we get more and more and more talk. We get very little thought and almost no reflection. In the debates that have taken place for a Republican candidate and will certainly come for President and Vice President, the respondents will have 30 seconds to craft an argument. Folks, you can't develop an argument in thirty seconds. You can cough up a sound bite or a hair ball, but a man must build  an argument upon foundations of substance and not propaganda, emotion, and slander.

If we elect substance over form in the coming election, it will only be by God's good grace. Few will do their homework before November.

This past week, I spoke with a young man who had just returned from an overseas mission trip. He said to me, "Mr. Pond, I was amazed because men just don't want to get involved within the church." He meant in the country where he had ministered, but I turned it back on him, "It's not just in foreign lands. In the American church today, it is the women who are hungry for the things of the Lord."

Consider, brothers:

-- Do we know God and his word? (John 17:3)

-- Is his pleasure the most important thing to me in everything that I say and do?

-- Do I even know what his pleasure is? Have I ever read the entirety of his word? Do I feed upon it, study it, and know it?  But I do know how many RBI's Josh Hamilton has.

-- Does my understanding of the world around me pass through the lens of God's word? Do I scrutinize my life and the world around me based upon what God's word says?

In light of that point, I am dumbstruck when I hear Christians talking about the American political process and our government, and the things they say fly in the opposite direction of God's clear proclamations.

Continuing.

-- As a man, how are you serving in your church? What do you do to help the body be the body on a regular basis?

-- Is your pastor bold and unashamed about stepping on your toes, confronting sin in the church, confronting sin in our nation and culture not by standing high atop his pulpit and pointing down in condemnation but by announcing with clarity what God's word says?

-- Has he ever dared preach a message on damnation and salvation? If he has, does he ever not? Does he get past the salvation message to preaching of the full counsel of God's word so that the believer might be equipped to move beyond baptism toward living life in a fallen world in a manner that pleases our God and Savior? 

-- Are we taught and disciplined toward reflecting Christ above all things that we might love him with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength?

We say it. We know it. But we do not do it. It's like loving your wife. We might cover the passages in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and 1 Peter 3 regarding husbands and say "Oh, yeah," but when it comes to living it out, our legs are as useless as the man beside Bethesda. When Christ commands, "Get up and walk," if we just sit there, our newly strengthened legs avail us nothing.

Wisdom calls aloud in the streets. God is not hiding from us. We know right where to find him.

When I began my first blog, Ripples Across the Pond, I did so to spur on the men of my church. Our discussions over the things of this life in light of God's word seemed to get cut short on Wednesday nights, so I started writing about those things through the lens of God's word to encourage and prod my brothers forward. Today, most of my readership is women.

Our nation's Founders didn't have Call of Duty VIII; they answered the call to duty. They labored hard at their business or at their farm or both, and in the evening, they fed upon God's word and upon great works of literature. They didn't avoid conversations about politics and religion, those were the topics of conversation because those were the things that mattered. These men hammered their ideas and convictions upon the anvil of God's word, and as iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17), they further honed them in debate and argument with one another.

Husband, if we want to be men that matter in the darkening days our nation's history, we must work. Read well and read deep. Study God's word in all its pages first and foremost, but read widely, too. Read history. Read great fiction. Read great non-fiction.

And then talk. Talk with your family. Talk with other men. Rhetoric has died. "Dude, how you doin'?" is all we can muster. Challenge a brother. Challenge yourself. "Hey, Bob, I'd like to know your thoughts on Paul Ryan as a vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party," and see if you and Bob can discuss it without resorting to slander and name-calling. If you think Barack Obama has tanked the nation, can you explain why in more than three sentences? How does he compare with our Founders' intentions for a Constitutional Republic? How has he stood as a leader in light of God's word?

Brothers, I don't have all the answers, but I ache for men to spur me on. If I desire that, my hope is that other men might desire a kick in the keister, too. I write these missives not for you to enjoy but to move you to love your wife by being the man God has called you to be.

Let us not be shallow men. Let us prepare ourselves so that when God seeks a useful man, he might find us prepared, ready to be used in whatever manner he sees fit.

"Let us strive to think well." ~ Blaise Pascal

Proverbs: Tend your walls!

More grim news on the marital front.

I'd love to get away from this and paint pictures of pastel posies, but that's not what's happening in the world. Really, the entire purpose for starting this blog is for it to remind husbands that we are in a war. There is a very real enemy who wants to see you destroyed and neutralized in your relationship with God. One of the greatest ways to cripple you and destroy your testimony is to blow your marriage to smithereens. Consider these posts a bit of a STATREP (status report) on what's happening along the front and a tactics brief for countering the enemy wiles. Some grim markers today:

• The general:  Baby-boomers are now divorcing at higher rates. Joy. That's older folks in longer marriages bit by bit putting their relationship with their spouse through the shredder. The dismal report here.
• The closer-to-home: My bride is friends with a woman who shared that two couples she was close to ended their marriage. Both had been married for more than twenty years.

As our culture dismantles marriage one thread at a time, it becomes easier and easier for us to give in to the entropy and let our relationship with our woman erode like a sandcastle before the tide. Which brings me to the Proverbs.

It seems that every year I head back to the Proverbs for a season, starting on the first of the month and reading one of the thirty chapters each day for the entirety of the month, and then as the calendar page turns, I start again the next month. Usually, I'll do this for three months running because their is so much treasure in the Proverbs. I want these little nuggets to become part of the fabric of my being. Today's chapter ended with a crucial brick for establishing a marriage's foundation.

A man without self-control

is like a city broken into

and left without walls. 

~ Proverbs 25:28

Once again, brothers, the issue begins in the heart of the man in the mirror. There can be no success without self-control. Discipline. Going the right way. Doing the right thing. Speaking the right words. And really, you know this full well, if you don't administer discipline yourself, it will eventually be imposed upon you either from the world (1 Peter 2:13-14, Romans 13:4) or perhaps a friend (Proverbs 25:12, 27:17). In either case, discipline comes at God's hand (Hebrews 12:4-11).

If we do not maintain consistent discipline in our lives, like termites in our beams, the walls begin to be eaten from the inside out and often completely unseen.

• Will you repeat that ribald joke?
• Will you take a second look at the co-ed you passed in the mall?
• Will you see where that enticing link will take you?
• Will you let the words fly from the bow string of your lips deep into the heart of your wife in a moment of anger and frustration?
• Will you take those dollars because no one will know, no one will see?

The warnings of Scripture abound. Truly, we are without excuse for the things that bring us down. As Rome was not built in a day, neither did it's demise come like lightning. The decay and rot takes root in a moment and grows and infects over weeks, months and years. Soon, the walls fall with nary a breeze.

Will we exercise the courage to say "No" or exhibit our love for God by fleeing when necessary?

Husbands, what have you entertained? Where have you not exercised needful self-control? Repent. Now. Only God can provide the strength and cleansing to rid your castle of the rot and the termites that have done their damage. Only he can restore our walls (1 John 1:9). Then, as you go through this day, choose to serve your Lord with each of your decisions. 

Glorify him in your work. 
Glorify him in your living room.
Glorify him in your church. 
Glorify him in your bedroom. 
Glorify him at your keyboard. 
Glorify him on the highway and in the mall.
Glorify him with your children.
Glorify him with your friends.
Glorify him with your wife.

One great way to be a man of self control is to feed upon the Proverbs. As June draws to a close and July kicks off, would you consider reading a chapter of Proverbs each day through July and August, really letting God speak to you on issues of finance, marriage, work, parenting, the tongue, anger, etc.?

Open your ears to hear. Be a man of self-control so that the walls of your marriage will withstand the onslaught of the enemy and your castle will thereby bring honor and glory to God.

Train yourself!

Today could not be a prettier day here in north Texas. The storms of yesterday have given way to a radiant blue sky with a dusting of high cirrus providing the canopy for a green seldom seen in these parts. Everything that has ever dreamt of flowering has ruptured into bloom. Really, a glorious spring that God has provided these parts.

That has nothing to do with my pending musing.  Just thought I'd share.

Some of you are gym rats. You hunger for the weights like Lady Gaga hungers for the paparazzi. Some of you obsess more than that. Some just like to tone. Some like to run. Others opt for the remote and a box of Twinkies. Regardless of your current calisthenic fanaticism, I suspect you can look at a time in your life where you have rigorously trained for something.

Some of you fly jets. Others practice law (love that phrase, like practicing medicine. Will they ever let you do more than practice?). Some shoot scratch golf. One friend was a Navy SEAL (I haven't yet seen him balance a ball on his nose). Regardless of what drove you to that goal, you understand the requirements for discipline, focus, intention, effort, and pain to attain the things of value. In the middle of Paul's first letter to his dear friend, Timothy, a man he considered so dear he referred to him as his "child in the faith," Paul exhorted him with,

"...train yourself for godliness." (1 Timothy 4:7b)

Paul knows men. He speaks about how men are wont to focus on fitness (v. 8), and he notes that while there is benefit to physical training, training ourselves in things spiritual has far greater benefit. Might I suggest an implication here? Then why don't we do it?

This wasn't a suggestion Tim was receiving from his mentor; it was a command.

So, husband, train yourself for godliness. Do. It.

Where do I start? I know how that feels. If you haven't been to a fitness center, that place that used to be called a gym, you might feel like you just walked into NASA or a farm supply warehouse depending on the facility you've chosen. "Where to begin?" you wonder. Paul does not leave his friend in the fog.

"Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity...devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching." (1 Timothy 4:12-13)

It took you two seconds to read that sentence. Consider this one:

"Knock out three sets on bench, squats, curls, military press, with a weight that will max you out at ten reps on the first set, then increase the weight and decrease the reps with each subsequent set."

It took you maybe three seconds. Do you feel the burn from reading it? Are you stronger after reading it? Need a rub down, now? Of course not. Reading is not doing. It would take you time in the gym (not reading this drivel) to accomplish what was demanded.

As Paul encouraged the young pastor to "set the believers an example," so too must you, husband, set an example in your home, before your wife and before your children. This is not a hypocritical "do as I say and not as I do" but rather a biblical "follow me as I follow Christ." To be able to proclaim that, you must, of course, first be following Christ.

So in this spiritual gym, what's on the workout plan?

1. Your speech
2. Your conduct
3. Your love toward God and others
4. Your faith and trust in God
5. Your purity
6. Your exposing your family to the word
7. Your ability to exhort, motivate and encourage them
8. Your teaching them

Notice that with one through five, you can work on these without a spotter. You, the word, and the Holy Spirit, as you focus on the Master, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, can knock these out in the solitude of your soul. The results will be manifest before others. In six through eight you become the mentor and coach as you plow into your family.

Now consider the scope of training that each bullet requires! What must happen for you to be an example in your speech? How many verses in Scripture focus on the tongue, its misuse and abuse, and how it should be used for God's glory and for the building up of his creatures? What is entailed in your training toward becoming a man of purity? Paul just told you to run a spiritual marathon. Not suggested, mind you, he demanded it. How you going to train? What's your plan?

If you are a man of God, a follower of God, a son of God, a disciple and lover of our Lord Jesus Christ, then these things must matter to you. I'll not sit here and explain what you must do with each bullet; I'd be writing until June. This is for you, brother. God commands you to train toward godliness. You're Sylverster Stallone. He's Burgess Meredith. You gonna listen to Mick? Submit yourself to his plan.

"Practice these things, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on your teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers." (1 Timothy 4:15-16)

So let us not be cut in physique alone. Do not be a master of Call of Duty III and a casualty in your spiritual duty. Grab your Bible, submit your heart to God, and get to work. 

• Practice
• Devote
• Keep watch
• Persist 

You can and must do no less.