The Ideal Manhood

“If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” –Isaiah 7:9

One of the greatest fears I have in life is that way down the future, one of my kids will wake up in the morning, look out the window, and see nothing. They’ll look at the sky and see nothing but a big blue expanse. And when the sun sets in that sky, they’ll see nothing but a fiery blend of warm colors. The grass will be nothing more than green and the stars will be nothing more than science to them. You see, I want my kids to wake up in the morning and go to bed at night confident in who they are and what they believe.

I say this now as I’m sitting in a coffee shop on my birthday because I can see numerous times in my life where I have woken up not sure about what I stand for. I would simply just get up and go do. I would go to school or work a nine to five as if it were to speaking meaning and essence into my life. Yet ripping at my heart was a conviction that to be a man meant not to just do, but to have my actions filtered out of my beliefs. This conviction was only birthed out of a holistic understanding of the picture of men painted within Scripture.

Too many times have I seen man not given purpose, so they work out of their muscles and their ability rather than their belief. Yet in Scripture I see manhood defined not in what they do, but rather what they stand for. Their life is not given meaning in their muscles, money, or cars, but in their inner workings from which their convictions arise.

There is an evident contrast I see from the men of Scripture and the modern day man that exists today. Today I see man (not all men) going through life not sure of what they stand for. Falling on their hard shell of an exterior are titles meant to give them some sort of definition in being a man. Give them some sort of shape rather than being a formless nothing. But sadly, they are deemed the perverts, the adulterers, the cheaters, the jocks, the prideful, and the villain. There are some men who are deemed honorable and noble, but if you take a magnifying glass to their life you see that this sense of chivalry has no backbone, no spine from which it forms its foundation. Man is given no shape, no definition in themselves.

But as I reflect on my birthday, I praise God that being a man of the Lord makes complete sense. It is the ideal manhood where someone could look upon the man and know not only what they stand for but also why they believe what they believe. It is in this manhood I see that actions are filtered through convictions and not the other way around. It is in this manhood that I can wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, knowing who I am and what I stand for.

It only took me 21 years to figure out what it truly means to be a man. It is not wholly dependent on age or ability. It is dependent on the very thing that speaks a satisfying essence into my being. Praise be to God and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ that I am given a meaning. Praise be to God that I can look upon these past 21 years of life and not simply believe them to be an act of providence arising out of my own ability, but rather an orchestration of different instruments leading me to sing the praise of my Maker.