Growing Up Into Men

Growing Up into Men

One of the greatest plagues facing men in our nation is that of perpetual adolescence. The reason we don’t recognize our adolescence is because like adolescents, many men imagine themselves to be more mature than they actually are. We fail to see our immaturity because rather than comparing ourselves with those who have gone before us, we only compare ourselves with those with whom we surround ourselves. But, when we read the of the real courage, sacrifice, determination, and endurance of the men who lived just a century ago, we recognize how far we still have to go. The teenagers of the great depression endured more adversity than most men face in a lifetime today. We think sharing the gospel with our neighbor is risky business and pat ourselves on the back for our boldness, when Christians living under communism in the previous generation, faced not only death, but torture, for holding to their faith. 

I believe if history were our teacher, it would give many 21^st century men a substandard progress report in their progress towards true manliness. In comparison to the generations that have come before us, I believe history would identify that one of the hinderances to our growth is the adolescent reluctance to leave the world of fantasy and enter the world of reality. Accepting this presumed assessment of professor history, I have written this article, first for my own benefit, second, for other men, but I also believe that it will be helpful to women. The two areas of maturity highlighted in this article have some relevance to women even if their struggles towards maturity might primarily lie elsewhere. But I also believe this article will help wives understand, know how to pray for, and better encourage their husbands.

As Paul concludes his first letter to the Corinthians, he wraps up by calling them to Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong (1 Cor 16:13). The fourth exhortation has been the theme of many sermon series and men’s retreats. It has recently provoked my meditation as I have considered how to grow up even more into biblical manliness.  

There are two words used in Greek to refer to men—anthropos and andros. They are essentially synonymous. However, the first is generally used in reference to mankind. The second is generally used to describe an adult male, in contrast to a woman or a child. It is this second term (andros) that Paul is using here. It is not clear from the immediate context whether Paul is emphasizing the masculine aspect or the mature aspect. Earlier in the letter he told the Corinthians that they were acting like children in Christ—But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. (2:1) Then in chapter 14 he exhorted them saying, Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. (14:20) So most likely Paul is using the word with the maturity aspect primarily in mind.

 

Fantasy to Reality

From childhood, many boys imagine themselves encountering dangerous and life-threatening situations. We gravitate towards guns and swords, envisioning ourselves defeating dangerous adversaries and evil monsters. Such fantasy continues as we grow older. The play-acting dies down as we turn to books, video games, and movies to engage our imagination. The fantasy continues as we identify with the characters—their courage being our courage, their victories our victories. A similar thing happens in the realm of sports.

Just as in other forms of entertainment, youths identify with their favorite player and embrace their own victories and defeats as their own. But fantasy is also taking place when youths are actively playing sports also. For they often imagine the significance of a game to go far beyond what it is in reality. I recall my experience playing football in high school and the seriousness that our coaches took winning games. From my perspective they treated football practice as seriously as if they were training us for war. Honestly, their level of seriousness and emotional involvement exceeded the intensity of the real military trainers I had in the Navy. 

Sports are fun. That is their point. But at the end of the day all that sports really accomplish is entertainment, and for participants, physical fitness. Nobody has really been edified, little true good has been accomplished. But our culture behaves as if winning the Superbowl is on the magnitude of winning the Battle of the Bulge. The money, time, and emotion invested in sports is extraordinary. We treat sports icons and Hollywood actors in the same way that ancient cultures used to honor their military heroes (men who actually risked their lives to defend their nation). Men who didn’t just pretend, or merely play games.

Still, there is something healthy about such fantasy. I would rather have people fighting for a first down than killing one another. I love sports, books, movies, and video games and all their fantastic elements. However, we need to recognize what all what these things really are—imaginary. As we mature, our engagement in fantasy should steadily diminish. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1 Cor 13:11). We should increasingly move away from fantasy and increasingly devote ourselves to real risk taking and sacrifice. The mark of a true man, a mature man, is that what they once used to fantasize about being as a child has become a reality in their everyday lives. Men who choose to primarily engage in the realm of fantasy, also choose to be perpetually childish. I suggest that therefore, whenever we choose to engage in fantastic entertainment, we should also resolve to put what we have admired in our minds into the reality in our lives.

The allurement of fantasy is partially why men are so susceptible to pornography. A man faces no difficulty or risk when he imagines that the woman he is gazing at, actually desires him as well. It is not difficult to imagine being desirable, but it is in fact very difficult to truly be desirable. True desirability takes effort, understanding, selflessness, and consistency over a long period of time. As one sage put it, “men are microwaves, but women are crockpots”. (Not crackpots, but slow cookers). A wife will not be drawn to her husband in the evening unless the husband has proven his love and care for his wife throughout the day. But such effort will take work and risk (she might not be interested). Few men have the selflessness and love to pursue their wives regularly, and thus they find fantasy just easier, even though it’s all a mirage. The fantasy is easier than experiencing the reality, but it is also shamefully childish. How ironic (and Satanic) that we call such filth adult entertainment.

Men also find it easy to allow their minds to drift into flights of fancy, like Walter Mitty. Such daydreaming is not necessarily sinful, but it needs to be checked. True men care more about what they really are in the here and now and are not content to fantasize about what they might be in their imagination. Every time you find yourself drifting into the fantastic realm, ask yourself, if this is what you want to be? Then consider, what should you do now to ACTUALLY become what you want to be. Turn that fantastic thought into an action, and then keep performing that action until it turns it into a godly habit.

We don’t want to be men like Lepidus, as William Shakespeare conveyed him:

A barren-spirited fellow, one that feeds

On objects, arts, and imitations,

Which, out of use and staled by other men,

Begin his fashion.

But rather men like Brutus,

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up  

And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’

 

Taking True Risks

One of the strongest lures to the young male imagination are risks. This is because it is axiomatic that risk-taking requires confidence, boldness, and courage—universally recognized male virtues. Young men recognize that risk-taking is a singular mark of manliness, which is a good and natural craving. This is precisely why boys often do stupid things. This is also why taking drugs can be so alluring to some. What psychologists and sociologists label as “peer pressure” is often just a weak attempt to prove one’s manliness. For many young men, the enticement to narcotics is less about fearing what people think or being pressured into something they don’t want to do, as much as wanting to prove they are willing to take the risk. It’s not just the fun and pleasure involved, it’s what such risk-taking presumably proves. This is also why young men are willing to push the envelope in being cool—from being disrespectful to authorities, to even engaging in crime.

Speaking from experience, there is an addictive adrenaline rush when one breaks the law. There is a sensational affirmation that one is doing what he was created to do—take risks. The problem is that when we commit a crime, we have become the bad guy. Taking risks out of selfish gain is the opposite of what such instincts were actually designed for. Instead, we should be taking risks for the sake of others. Crime causes us to become the very beasts we imagined ourselves slaying when we were younger.

Our attraction to rebellion follows this line of thinking. We tend to assume that rebels are the good guys because good guys take risks. Maybe this is because our country was founded upon rebellion, or maybe it is because rebels in the movies tend to always be the good guys. God has a different assessment though—For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry (1 Sam 15:23). The assumption that rebellion is good, has even fooled some Christians into thinking that God actually approves of their rebellion. Some go as far to assume they were being persecuted because they were turned away from a super-market for not wearing a mask. But choosing not to wear a mask because one wants to stick it to the man, is a far cry from being tortured for Christ. True risk taking involves true risk, and godly risk-taking is for the sake of others, to the glory of God.

Godly risk-taking is also a modest characteristic. Far from flashy, it is usually so mundane and unnoticeable that it will hardly impress anybody. As Father Zosima explained to the young priest Alyosha in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov,

love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.  Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all.  Men will give their lives if only the ordeal is slow and does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as if on stage.  But, active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people a complete science.

 

Even the greatest and truest man of all had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Is 53:2–3).

Part of the great risk involved in godly risk-taking is that no one will notice, except God. But since the only opinion a godly man should care about is God’s, there is actually no risk of our sacrifice never being noticed or appreciated. The only judge who is sufficient to judge rightly, knows all and sees all.

Godly risk-taking also embraces the consequences of risk. Even when a godly man takes a risk and it backfires, he accepts responsibility for the risk. He doesn’t blame others or make excuses. He takes responsibility for the decision he made and then evaluates what he can do differently in the future.

I suggest that young men (of all ages) need to progressively leave the world of fantasy and purposefully train themselves for real godliness. Few of us will be called to take on monsters or to fight in wars. However, we must remember that the fiercest battle of all is raging around us an in us constantly. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph 6:12) This war is not just fought against Satan and the world, but it is primarily a fight from within our own hearts. Consider what John Owen writes in his classic, Overcoming Sin and Temptation.

Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified…Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you…Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who does not kill sin in this way takes no steps toward our journeys end. He who finds not opposition from it, and who set not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it…He that is appointed to kill an enemy, if he leave striking before the other ceases living, does but half his work (Gal 6:9; Heb 12:1; 2 Cor 7:1).

Young men of all ages can move from being warriors in their mind by choosing to fight the good and real fight (1 Tim 6:12). We can begin by taking regular risks to our pride. We can choose to do something in public that we are not particularly skilled at; talk to strangers; purposefully direct conversations in a spiritual direction; take responsibility for things that will not necessarily lead to our personal advancement; confess our sin struggles to a trusted friend or spouse; ask somebody for help; do things that degrade our sense of dignity like cleaning up somebody else’s mess; swallow and withhold the snarky comment; give way to the pushy driver behind you; bless your enemies; pray for those who persecute you; take true risk for the sake of others; confront bullies; take leadership; give more money to a ministry this month; begin to lead your family in prayer and Bible study; wisely confront ungodly behavior at work; tell your coworkers what you truly believe the Bible says; attend a community group not because you feel like it, but because others need you.

I do believe the kettle is starting to heat up for Christians in America. Unless Christian men wake up to the reality of their immaturity and throw off their spiritual adolescence in shame, then the church in America will rapidly disintegrate in the face of adversity. The church needs real men now more than ever. Such maturity is not arrived at quickly. It takes purposefulness and patient endurance. And even tomorrow is too late to start such a venture considering the storm brewing on the horizon.