My friends, we are only as complicated as we make ourselves out to be. Pride and pretense have taken the place of genuine friendship and transparency. We all desperately want to find true love and acceptance in this world, but we are so rapt with fear and doubt brought on by our upbringing and our parent's fear and doubt and their parent's...well, you get the idea.
Society lies to us and we just take it. Society gives men the foolish and lazy idea to not be men, to not stand up and fill our role. Somewhere along the line we learned that taking the easy way out came with little consequence...or so it seems. It absolutely floors me to see how completely passive my gender can be. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty more times than not...but this is my blog, so I get to think out loud for right now.
A personal example:
I spent some of this afternoon thinking about a set of events that has occurred in my life since this semester began in the middle of January. The past few weeks, I've been spending some quality with a pretty awesome lady friend of mine...known the gal for about 15 years. I don't really know what was different now, but something just clicked and I took a step that hopefully every single man will take at some point, I initiated contact. I asked her out for some coffee, and thankfully she accepted. Conversation flowed effortlessly and coffee went down as a success in my book. Another week went by and more time was spent with her, just little stuff...some studying here, an anti-superbowl party there, just some relaxed, fun stuff. I am starting to feel like I have a good feel for who she is, we are beginning to form the bonds of a true friendship. There is chemistry and some flirting back and forth, but it's all good. Another "coffee date" for lack of a better term, a movie night, and some bowling. All is well, right? Wrong.
That's right about the time when my gender, my environment and my society caught up to me and popped some stupid pills down my throat. I committed the same cardinal sin that almost every man commits sooner or later and it makes women want to pull their hair out. I over-complicated the whole ball of wax. Men have been doing it for years. (I can't speak for women, for obvious reasons, so I hope you'll forgive me.) I started thinking too much and got frustrated with myself, I started to playback all the stuff I'd said and done in the last 3 weeks and started picking out everything that I thought went "wrong"...Men do this all the time. Especially with women. Especially when a gem crosses our path and we recognize how important our actions, words and attitudes are. We clam up and stop listening to our source of truth and strength. I know I did.
Big mistake. I wasn't being a man. I certainly wasn't operating in the same God-given confidence that I spend most of my days residing inside. Normally, I am a very strong person...it's not because I myself possess any strength of any kind. Quite to the contrary. I am strong because I realize that I am supremely weak, and I defer all things possible to the One who possesses infinite amounts of all good things.
The complete lack of confidence, the fear and doubt that I experienced Friday was a result of attempting to operate under my own strength for a brief moment. I wasn't even myself anymore. Thankfully, the poor lass on the other end of the phone had the good sense to tell me to stop talking. I made things too complicated. You have very likely done the very same thing.
So guys, how do we stop this from happening? How do we avoid embarrassing, emasculating actions that make us feel weak and inadequate? How do we kick that sick feeling in our stomach that tells us we aren't good enough? How do we accurately represent ourselves to the Godly women in this world who are just looking for God's men to stand up? Cling to the only real strength in this world. Find your confidence and your identity in the One who gave you that Y chromosome. You are nothing, I am nothing. When I look in the mirror, if all I see is me...all I see is failure and inadequacy. You don't want that anymore than I do.
God's man is ready for anything. He's got his armor (Eph. 6) on and he is good to go. You want to kick that feeling that you can't make it, that you can't win the maiden and you can't slay the dragon...? Pick up your Sword (The Word of God) and let's go un-complicate some things.
Blessings...
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P.S. - Let me just say that pursuing personal development for any sake other than the quest for holiness and the glory of Almighty God is a mistake. Trying to be more like Jesus to win the girl is a dangerous card to play. Check yourself. Get in the Word every day. Be a man.
P.P.S. - To the ladies: Please demand that we act like men. So many of you refer to us as "boys"...but I don't want to be called a boy any more than the next guy. If you're tired of dealing with boys, then raise your standards. Wait for the men. The man worth having is most definitely worth waiting for. However, when you've got a keeper, don't be afraid to make a move! When a keeper sticks his neck out there to come after you, don't let him draw back a nub.
Just saying...
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