I want you to read this like you’re about to make the worst decision of your life and I’m pleading with you through tear-soaked eyes to talk you off the ledge. That’s literally how important this is.
The room is tense–there’s a feeling in the air that seems to make everyone tight and unable to look anyone in the eye. Nobody’s said much for an hour, except the man leading the group, but he’s about to try and change that, and even though we’ve all seen it coming for the entire time we’ve been here, we’re all dreading it.
Then he asks that question.
“So, how have you been doing this week, dude? How’s your walk with Jesus looking? Anything I can be praying for in your life?”
UGH. Of course. He’s asking me. I spurt out the quickest answer I can think of.
“Yeah man, not really. I mean, I’m going through Romans right now and it’s really good,” God, please don’t let him ask me about specifics; the last time I read was actually a week ago and I honestly don’t even remember what chapter I’m supposed to be on now, “and as for prayer, I guess just a stronger push to stay closer to Him and keep growing in Him, you know? To be the man I’m supposed to be.”
I hate this.
It’s the same bull-crap answer. Every single week. Every single meeting. Every single guy.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been on either side of that conversation. Sometimes you’re the guy asking the questions, writing down the prayer requests, and then never praying for them because you lost the list somewhere among all the receipts you saved because you said you were going to use them to balance your checking account but you never organized them so you gave up. Most times, you’re the guy in the hot seat, chucking out some half-baked answer to an honestly serious and potentially life-giving question, scrambling to keep up an image of a Godly man even though you’re putting in a C-rate effort in the rest of your life.
A friend of mine said recently that he’d seen community done freakishly well and had also seen it done terribly, and the more I go through life, the harder it is for me to say I’m seeing it done well like he has.
Men, it’s time to wake up and face the truth: we suck at community and we suck bad.
Outside of the Christian sphere of influence, there are male relationships that appear to be pretty healthy, but are, at their core, centered on selfishness. Bromances usually spring out of times like at least two guys having spent a lot of time together, finding they have things in common, and then acting on those common interests (like hardcore sports fans or literally anything else). On the surface, they look great. But below deck, each guy is only there because the other is providing him with something: shallow companionship (i.e. lack of loneliness, affirmation on their opinions, etc.). Christian men are doing the exact same thing. And it makes me sick.
In our weekly/monthly/semi-annual/whatever Men’s Breakfasts/Men’s Lunches/Men’s Church League Sports/whatever other program you can come up with, we’re all afraid to expose our real lives and be vulnerable with each other. We have to have it all together. We have to have control of our families. We have to have a solid footing in our jobs and be excelling at them. We have to be 100% abstinent from extra-marital sex and pornography, lying, deceit, slander, and any other sin you could list.
I’ll say it again: we have to have it all together.
If you are a man who has trusted in Jesus and His sacrifice/resurrection and you can say you’ve never agreed with that statement for even a millisecond of your entire life, I’ll pay all your kids’ college tuition.
You can’t. That’s just it.
This lie cuts deep. It drives how we interact with each other. It shuts us down when we want to speak to a stranger about Jesus. We don’t want to be rejected. To be rejected means we failed. To fail means we’re inadequate. To be inadequate means we don’t have it all together. To not have it all together means God is displeased. And to have God displeased with you means your chances are done.
STOP IT.
NO THEY’RE NOT.
“There is none that are righteous: not one.” –Romans 3:10
We can all agree we’re messed up. All of us have something that makes us think, “Man, if they heard this part of my story they’d never want anything to do with me again.” We all do. It’s in there somewhere. But check this out:
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5:8
I think a lot of us tend to look at that verse and let the past-tense of the second half of it determine how we think about God and His opinion of us.
We shouldn’t be.
The first part is present indicative.
“What the heck does that mean?” you ask, because the former English major in me just lost you. It means that it’s indicating what’s happening right now.
Present: right now
Indicative: indicating
“God demonstrates His own love for us” is a phrase that means God is doing this every single day. He shows us His love all the time! His love for what? For us.
His love for you is so strong it motivated Him to let Christ die on that cross. Do you know what He went through that day? It’s horrific. It’s beyond that. And He did it all for you. If he thinks enough of you to do that for you, then doesn’t it make sense that there’s not much that can change that opinion?
Yeah, that’s right, it’s literally nothing. He’s not going anywhere.
Dudes, we are so good at sitting around and talking literally all day about the Cowboys alone. Or maybe our wives/girlfriends. Or maybe TV shows like Friday Night Lights, the Flash, House of Cards, or whatever else you like. And do you know how many of those things matter?
Not one of them. Not even one.
So if we can do that, then why can’t we get ourselves to be real with the most important part of our lives: our relationship with Jesus? We’re so afraid of being wrong and being the broken guy that we waste our time doing nothing but performing (and performing really terribly, to be honest).
Stop it.
Quit fighting this alone.
You can’t do it alone.
You are broken.
So am I. But it doesn’t matter because Jesus died for us anyway. That’s how much He loves you. And me. So why would we act like what’s really fiction is true and deceive ourselves? That’s stupid.
We can’t make it on our own. We have to go together. We have to come to the honest conclusion that the only reason other people seem to be able to do good things like we can’t is because they’ve bought in to God and His vision for the world a little more than we have. Simple fix.
Easy fix? Not really. But it is simple:
Spend time with Jesus. Like, a lot of it.
Don’t just read the scripture, engage it. Dive into it. Circle the parts you don’t understand and make your Bible look like a doctoral student got ahold of it because it’s okay to not get it 100%. It’s okay to feel like you came up short in your Bible study time. God wrote it and you’re not God so don’t expect yourself to fully understand it all.
Be. Real. With. Your. Brothers. Stop holding back so you look like you’re not the broken guy. You’re all broken guys, so get over yourself and be real. Say how you’re struggling. Make it real to yourself and to your bros so you can lean on each other and make it through.
Be aggressive, yet purposeful.
Be patient with your progress, yet forward-moving. Don’t sit around and wait for God to magically make everything work out.
You cannot do it alone.
Stop trying to.
Ty Hirsch 