Walk into most churches in America, have a look around, and ask yourself this question: What is a Christian man? Don’t listen to what is said; look at what you find there. There is no doubt about it. You’d have to admit a Christian man is…bored. Really Nice Guys. We don’t smoke, drink, or swear; that’s what makes us men…dutiful.
If you had permission to do what you really want to do, what would you do? Don’t ask how; that will cut your desire off at the knees. How is never the right question; how is a faithless question. It means “unless I can see my way clearly I won’t believe it, won’t venture forth.”
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who come alive.
Life is not a problem to be solved; it is an adventure to be lived. That’s the nature of it and has been since the beginning when God set the dangerous stage for this high-stakes drama and called the whole wild enterprise good. He rigged the world in such a way that it only works when we embrace risk as the theme of our lives, which is to say, only when we live by faith. A man just won’t be happy until he’s got adventure in his work, in his love and in his spiritual life.
We are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our lives but reactors, to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running the strongest.
God meant something when he meant man, and if we are to ever find ourselves we must find that. What has he set in the masculine heart? Instead of asking what you think you ought to do to become a better man, I want to ask, what makes you come alive? What stirs your heart?
Life needs a man to be fierce—and fiercely devoted.
In every relationship something fierce is needed once in a while.
Every woman yearns to be fought for. She wants to be wanted, pursued, a priority to someone.
Which would you rather be said of you: “Harry? Sure I know him. He’s a real sweet guy.” Or, “Yes, I know Harry. He’s a dangerous man…in a really good way.”
No question about it—there is something fierce in the heart of God.
The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.
He begins to die, that quits his desire.
All men die; few men ever really live. Braveheart
Most men think they are simply here on earth to kill time—and it’s killing them. But the truth is precisely the opposite. The secret longing of your heart, whether it’s to build a boat and sail it, to write a symphony and play it, to plant a field and care for it—those things you were made to do. That’s what you’re here for. Explore, build, conquer—you don’t have to tell a boy to do those things for the simple reason that it is his purpose. Are we willing to live with the level of risk God invites us to? Something inside us hesitates.
Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win; only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.
Every man is haunted by the question, “Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes…when it counts?
A man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life that involves and yet transcends even home and family. He must have a cause to which he is devoted even unto death, for this is written into the fabric of his being.
The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live. Sure, you can create a safe life for yourself…and end your days in a rest home babbling on about some forgotten misfortune. I’d rather go down swinging. Besides, the less we are trying to “save ourselves”, the more effective a warrior we will be.
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it”, is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. GK Chesterton