The Man in the Mirror: Solving the 24 Problems Men Face

by Patrick Morley

Whatever the reason for our suffering, we can humble ourselves under God’s plan for our lives, or we can resist, but we cannot avoid suffering. Suffering is as much a part of life as eating, and we must consume some of it. Like eating spinach or some other disliked vegetable, if we are to be fully nourished, we must accept it.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote: I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable. All these and other factors combined, if the circumstances are right, can teach and can lead to rebirth.40

The solution to our suffering, however, is not

only figuring out how to get over it but also learning how to enjoy the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s suffering, to not falter in times of trouble, to not be anxious about anything, to endure patiently, and to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes God will deliver us according to our desires, but more often He has bigger plans for us, and He doesn’t deliver us quickly. Our part in His plan for us is to cast all our anxiety on Him. Take, for example, this psalm of David: Do not withhold your mercy from me, LORD; may your love and faithfulness always protect me. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than...

You may know it in part, but until you come to the point where you feel you will die unless Jesus shows you some compassion, only then will you ever trust Him completely. Once you pass through this threshold of His grace, you will have incredible power to overcome anxiety. The tempter cannot terrorize you with any uncertainty that you have not already known, for you have felt the hands of God reach down, embracing you in response to your faith.

Why not decide once and for all that you will always be honest?

But when we begin to grasp the simplicity of this battle for our minds, we can equip ourselves with some firepower to retake control of our secret thought lives. Christians today are often ill-equipped for this struggle. It’s a little like conscripting civilians into the army and sending them to war, without ever teaching them how to fire their rifles.

Many of us don’t clearly understand the difference between temptation and sin, so we often feel like we are treading water without knowing where the bottom is; we are like a six-foot man who drowns in four feet of water.

To understand the difference between temptation and sin is to understand where it is safe to walk or not. The light comes from God’s Word. The rheostat is our own understanding of what the Word says. The more we know, the brighter the light. The brighter the light, the less fuzzy the objects and the more confident we are about where to walk.

TAKE CAPTIVE EVERY THOUGHT

No thought should be allowed to have its own way. Like the daughter who wants to test her parents, our thoughts want to have their own way, but we must take captive each and every one of them. Why? Because, in the words with which Solomon concluded the book of Ecclesiastes, “God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing [our secret thought life], whether it is good or evil”

The missing link in most of our lives is accountability. We get off track because we are not regularly answerable for each of the key areas of our lives to qualified people to whom we have given permission to ask the hard questions — questions about the goals we set and the standards God has established. We have learned that accountability here and now is important because God will ultimately hold us accountable for everything we do. Accountability goes far beyond mere counsel or fellowship; it requires answers to the questions — sometimes hard questions — we are asked.

The Christian pilgrimage is a moment-by-moment, daily journey. It requires daily effort, without which we will stray. “Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge” (Proverbs 19:27).