The Men We Need: God’s Purpose for the Manly Man, the Avid Indoorsman, or Any Man Willing to Show Up (Christian Book on Masculinity & Gift Idea for Father's Day or Graduation Gift for Guys)

by Brant Hansen

We men are at our best when we are “keepers of the garden.” This means we are protectors and defenders and cultivators. We are at our best when we champion the weak and vulnerable. We are at our best when we use whatever strength we have to safeguard the innocent and provide a place for people to thrive.

Masculinity is about taking responsibility. We naturally respect men who take responsibility for themselves. We have even more respect for those who go beyond themselves to their families. And we have immense respect for men who take responsibility for those well outside their own homes.

We’re all called to be keepers and protectors in our spheres of influence, whatever and wherever they are.

who was with her,

The text makes it seem like Adam was there the whole time. So he let her converse with an enemy of God, and he didn’t intervene to protect her or the garden.

While Jake immerses himself in fake accomplishments, there are real things that need to be done. While he entertains himself with images of women, there are real women yearning for actual grown-up men. While his games and entertainment may center on fake storylines of fighting injustice, there are real people who need protection.

A passive man becomes useless to those around him. What’s more—and this may seem counterintuitive—a passive man is a threat to the woman in his life.

In our affluent Western culture, growing up for many of us is weirdly optional. Historically, men have had no choice but to grow up. They had to work to eat. They had to defend themselves, their families, and their communities. But most of us here and now can choose the life of an entertainment consumer, just moving from one experience to the next.

Isolation never seems to be the goal, but it’s always the end result.

God created us for relationship, but we get swindled into isolation.

My sin isn’t sin because it’s on a random list of activities that God just doesn’t happen to like. My sin is sin because it stops me from being who I’m supposed to be and what I could have been.

The lie serves to destroy the real and the true and the beautiful.

Gaming is another form of supernormal stimuli and can make me lose my taste for real things. But I’ve made a commitment to living a real life. This is part of my arrangement with God. He’s given me one life, and I’m going to be loyal to him. He wants me to be fully me and fully present. He put me here, and no one else has the exact same circumstances. No one else is around the exact same people. I have a role to play, and I need to show up for it. He’s given me a garden to keep, and I’m going to keep it.

If God created me to be the answer to others’ problems and a blessing to the vulnerable, how tragic would it be if I was too busy playing a character?

The hurting world and your hurting community need you to solve real-world problems, protect real-world people, and fight real-world injustice. Please don’t waste your God-given desire for adventure and accomplishment by being a fake hero fighting fake injustices in fake worlds.

The people in your neighborhood, at your school, or at your workplace should be safer because you’re there.

If the men show up, the most vulnerable aren’t so vulnerable anymore. They have us.

If you don’t do something, don’t just assume it will get done. Your life is deeply meaningful, one way or another. Your efforts matter. Your work matters. You’re the only one uniquely placed in your position in the world. No one else is in your exact context.

If someone needs encouragement and you don’t provide it, it’s quite possible they will not be encouraged. If someone needs their existence acknowledged and you are in a position to do that but take a pass, it’s possible no one will acknowledge it. Yes, God wants it done, and yes, he has the power to do it. That’s why he put you there.

the correct answer to the question, “When should I get my child a smartphone?” is “Whenever you want their childhood to end.”

surely being a godly man means being a defender of the weak. Surely it means favoring the humble, as he does. Surely it means being a father to the fatherless.

You will struggle with feeling meaningless when you choose to invest your time and energy in meaningless things.

I’ve noticed that people who are actively serving others don’t really struggle with feeling meaningless.

Wow, that’s beautiful! And I don’t have to have it.

In America, we’re taught that we’re supposed to seek to possess everything we desire. It helps drive our economy.

Contentment brings freedom. Discontentment makes you dependent.

It’s not about the socks. It’s about whether I care. That’s always the question, even in long-term, successful marriages: Do you still care? Do I still matter to you?

Real love means wanting the best for someone.

This is the common way women are treated by men, as things to be consumed and experienced. If she doesn’t provide the feelings we’re after, well, we move on. This is a betrayal of our God-given role as keeper of the garden. We are doing the work of the enemy. We become destroyers and predators instead of protectors.

So if you’re living with a woman without marrying her, you’re acting out this mystical “one flesh” with your body but not with your soul. You’re valuing keeping your options open more than you are valuing her. You’re taking her without fully giving yourself.

Sex in the context of commitment—body, soul, and mind—is creative and secure. Sex out of this context is the opposite. It’s destructive, to her and to you. You can “make it work” for a while outwardly, but ultimately acting in dis-integrity corrodes all facets of life.

(By the way, I know one popular definition of gentleman is “a man who can play the accordion but doesn’t.”

Stay silent when needed, but never passive. Actively decide to wield your words carefully. Wield them to always defend and never wound the vulnerable people around you.

I used to think that if a man came into my house to attack my wife, I would certainly stand up to him. But then I came to realize that the man who enters my house and assaults my wife every day is me, through my anger, my harsh words, my complaints, and my indifference. As a Christian, I came to realize that the man I needed to kill in order to protect my wife is myself as a sinner.

If you’re married with kids, now is the time to be home a lot.

Now is the time to concentrate on the people around you, the ones depending on you.

You have them now. You’re needed now. They need you to relax now and quit modeling now that the point of our existence is career advancement, before they internalize that lie. They need to see you, and lots of you, living a life of contentment in all circumstances. If and when you hit financial tough times, they need to hear you praying through those times. They’ll always remember those moments. They’ll tell stories about them.

Ultimately our lives are entirely about relationships. That becomes crystal clear in the deathbed scenario. It becomes clear in an emergency too.

Who we become is a direct result of what we pay attention to.

Our attention is a limited thing, and we have to manage it like finances.

I am responsible for what I do with my thoughts. I can take them captive, Scripture says, and break them like an experienced rider can break a wild horse.

Do evil or foolish thoughts, or just plain dumb thoughts, pop into my head? Oh, heck yes, they do. But I can catch on. I can recognize what they are. I can replace those thoughts with better ones. I can get busy doing something else. I don’t have to beat myself up for stuff that pops into my head.

What you pay attention to will affect the people around you, for good or ill.

Ask God for wisdom. It’s the most important thing you can request, and he promises he’ll give it to you. Wisdom will spare you and others around you immense pain. That’s the thing about foolishness: It always, always, always brings pain.

Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others . . . but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God “sending us” to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud.

We will either be more like him and an oasis of peace and strength for others in a chaotic world, or a distorted, twisted grumble machine.

But nothing we do is truly private. What we do and who we are have consequences that ripple outward, whether we like it or not. What’s more, what we don’t do and who we aren’t also have consequences.

No one operates in a vacuum. There is no such thing as private sin. And there is no such thing as private virtue. Who you are reverberates through your home and neighborhood and the world.

We need you to be the man you are made to be. Make no mistake, there is no “as long as I’m not hurting someone else . . .” If you’re not who you’re made to be, it hurts you. And it hurts us.

So here’s how to attack our self-control problem: 1. Expand the vision for who you are and who we need you to be.