The Heart in the Cross

Like many men, I do some of my best reading while on the throne. Today was no exception in my kingdom -- I'm traveling through SHATTERED DREAMS by Larry Crabb (2001: Water Brook Press). And this is what I read:

"If I were her pastor, I would want to preach in the spirit of the New Covenant, inviting Naomi and everyone in the congregation to see the heart of God revealed in the cross of Christ. I would encourage them to interpret all of life's hardships not as problems to fix or struggles to relieve or pain to deaden, but as important elements in a larger story that all God's children long to tell. I would urge them to accept wherever they are on the journey, whether happy or miserable, as the place where God will meet them, where He loves them, where He will continue to work in them. And I would offer my own life as a growing, struggling, sometimes painfully unattractive example of what doing that might mean." (p. 81, emphasis added)

In Crabb's book (subtitled "God's Unexpected Pathway to Joy"), the Scriptural story of Ruth and Naomi is unpacked. As God, my True Father, leads me on a journey of masculine initiation, I am in search of my heart -- not the "old man" heart of continuous sin but the redeemed heart, created anew in the power of Christ, the heart of flesh, the masculine heart beating with the purpose of the Creator. I offer to you who are reading this a question: What about the heart?

A week ago I inquired of the Lord that very question. His answer to me was quick and decisive: "Be strong for Me, be courageous -- and give to Me your heart. You will be stronger through Me than you ever could be on your own. And your courage will have no end through Mine. Give Me all your heart -- the good, bad, and ugly. I will heal it, and I will love through it."

The Lord is calling to my heart! "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...'" (Genesis 1:26 NASB) I have been made to resemble the Father, Son, and Spirit. So what about the heart? The first mention of "heart" in Scripture comes at the corruption of mankind, when the "wickedness" in man's heart was continual, grieving God in His (Genesis 6:5-6)

I believe, as a follower of Christ, the Christ of the cross, the Christ who redeems and heals the hearts of His believers, that this tells me, as one created in His image, that the heart is meant for good. God's good heart grieved over man's wicked heart, as any True Father would mourn watching the center of His True Son go astray. Each of us as men have elements to a larger story we are desperate to tell -- not only to ourselves, but to each other as men and also to our Eternal Father.

Presently, I am in a Boyhood stage of initiation at the hands of God. He understands that in the past, over many years, I felt missed, wounds were received, and a boy's heart was broken in the war of growing up with a wounded father. "...accept wherever they are on the journey..." Part of the larger story I long to tell my True Father was captured years ago in an article this author wrote for The ManKind Project Louisville (http://www.louisville.mkp.org/ or http://www.mkp.org/) entitled "Is It A Hate Crime To Love Myself?"

"If asked to describe what the war seems like to me, I would say it's constantly a battle of two sides -- one that hates myself against the side that doesn't know how to love...Both sides of the war trade secrets all the time. Casualties are high on any given day. Neither side knows how to win, nor does either army know how to surrender. I sometimes don't want to stop hating myself because all there would be left is this huge bombed-out crater in my soul that would demand peace talks, and then...love. I sometimes don't want to love myself, even when others are loving me, when the peacekeepers arrive and tell me that the war is over...In loving myself I commit no crime...In this war, if nothing changes everything is lost. If I choose the power to change my beliefs of hate towards myself, I open up negotiations towards a settlement between opposing forces. I surrender to the possibility that both sides, even in pain, want peace."

So, another question: "Where, for you, is the wherever on your journey you may not be accepting?" I mean this with all sincerity -- don't look at the men who surround you, whether it be at the office, in church, or in your family. In WILD AT HEART (2001: Thomas Nelson, Inc.), John Eldredge (http://www.ransomedheart.com/) says "The wilderness trial of Christ is, at its core, a test of his identity. 'If you are who you think you are...' If a man is ever to find out who he is and what he's here for, he has got to take that journey for himself. He has got to get his heart back." (p. 6)

I invite you to witness through these postings what growing, struggling, and painfully unattractive looks like to me on the journey of masculine initiation at the hands of God. God will restore me as the Beloved Son. My heart will be healed, strong and courageous, a New Covenant heart in the likeness of its Creator. By His grace amazing, I am ready to believe that there is a place in my Father's heart which no one but me can fill. And that heart -- His and mine -- is in the cross of Christ.

So brothers...men...what about your heart?

The journey continues...

A Letter To My Father

In his book, Wild at Heart, John Eldredge notes:

"Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father."
Eldredge, John. Wild at Heart. (2001). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., p. 60.



Over the past several weeks, my True Father, God, has invited me to join Him on a journey to discover the new -- and masculine -- heart He created for me. I believe what Scripture tells me: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26 NIV)


It feels as if I've pulled fifty arrows from my heart of flesh recently. I'm no stranger to men's work or the sojourn of examining my own wounded masculinity. At the age of 46, I was given the courage to pull those arrows out of my center and tell my birth father what damage they've done. Even though he died in 1996, the following letter -- written to him just days ago -- is the first time I've articulated such a deep wound in me.


In sharing this with you, I encourage you as men -- whether believers in God or not -- that perhaps the truest map to discovering what our hearts were designed for can only come from the One who created it. My life's verse holds true: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV)


The journey continues...and He will lead me -- and love me -- through territory and uncharted lands created by Him, for I was created in His image, as are men, to be wild, dangerous, unfettered, and free.



Dear Dad:

I'm writing this letter to you because I'm hurting REALLY bad over my memories of childhood and beyond. There's a lot of sadness and fear and anger over how you fathered me -- AND HOW YOU DIDN'T!


Our last words to each other the night before you died were "I love you." I can't remember you telling me that -- or showing me -- a lot over my life. WHY? Did you love me or appreciate me? Did I matter to you? Where you EVER proud of me? Did you ever care about what made me happy? Why didn't you ever try to rescue me when I first got into trouble with drugs? Why didn't you teach me things I needed to know? Would it have hurt you to encourage me? Why did you hate me so much?


If someone asked me to describe you, I'd say "Well, he did work hard, provided -- but he seemed really unhappy, angry, emotionally distant, unloving, bitter." I can never recall being proud of you. I hated it when you fought with Mom -- always, it seemed, over money, or how one of us kids (all of us?) were useless. Yet you always seemed to pay them all more attention (love?) than me.


I really think a healthy portion of the blame for who I turned out to be rests at your feet. Why didn't you raise me better? You always seemed to have more joy for Mickey, Jeff, and Tim as your sons. What about me? When I was in rehab in 1985, I feel as if you only showed up so that you could get back together with Mom. You didn't care I was hurting so much, how I had gotten so deep into trouble with drugs, had been kicked out of college. You just wanted to make a show of it so that Mom would come home and take care of you.


I know you did things for me, "paid my way" so many times, provided shelter, food, clothes, medical help, education. But I needed you to father me, raise me, love me, show me I was important. I don't have these memories. I hate you for that. No wonder my life has been so screwed up, so much fear, anger, shame, sadness, drugs, sex, selfishness, running away, quitting -- YOU NEVER SHOWED ME A BETTER WAY! You never showed me a father. You never taught me how to be a boy, a man, a son.


I'm also writing to you to tell you I'm no longer an orphan. I've been adopted by a real Father, my True Father -- God. He loves me, needs me, delights in me, disciplines me out of love, teaches me, guides me, is my friend. I'm not even sure if you ever knew Him -- I know you went to church. But you never talked about God with me, either. One more important thing I had to come to on my own. I LOVE MY NEW DADDY!!


What made you the way you were? Why didn't you love us? Why did you have so many children if you didn't have joy for us? I'm like you a lot, without joy -- but sometimes I think I learned all the ways I never wanted to be like you by watching you in hopes that you would become all the things I wanted you to become -- loving, caring, happy, strong. You never did. Why not? What went so wrong?


My new Father wants me to forgive you for all the missed opportunities, the loss of love, and for all the pain you NOT fathering me has caused my life. He wants to heal me in all these broken places in my heart that you did damage to. You let me down so much. You failed me -- when I didn't know you did, when I thought you did, and when I needed you not to. My boyhood suffered because of it. My teenage years were lonely because of it. My young adulthood was a disaster because of it. And my maturity has been deficient because of it. I needed you so much -- and it makes me sad to know you can't father me.


I have given my broken heart to God, my new Father, my True Father. He will heal me. He will love me. I will ask Him to help me forgive you. I will ask Him to heal those painful memories that have hurt me for so long. I know He will because I am His Beloved Son -- He tells me so in His Word. I am sad that you lived so long in pain instead of joy -- I've done the same, but I will no longer live like this. Maybe you learned how not to love me from your father. You were his only son -- I don't know how he hurt you. I will be healed by my True Father for all the hurtful and abusive ways you talked to and treated me. I will be loved to wholeness by my True Father despite all the times you threatened or assaulted me. My True Father is ALWAYS there for me -- He will fill in every gap and empty space you created in my heart and life.


Dad, I let go of you now. You're dead and buried in Pennsylvania -- NOT IN MY NEW HEART IN CHRIST!! I will choose to honor you with forgiveness instead of anger. I will heal instead of hate. And I will be fathered by God in all the ways you failed -- HE WILL RAISE ME AS HIS BELOVED SON! I will be the son you never believed I could be, the son my True Father is proud of, loves deeply, and will never hurt.


Please subscribe to my blog to stay in touch with me on my journey of renewed masculine initiation with God. For more information on John Eldredge, please visit his Website at www.ransomedheart.com. For more information on men's work across the globe, visit The ManKind Project at http://www.mkp.org/. Please feel free to send a link to my blog to men you know -- http://www.hisgraceamazing.blogspot.com/

I Wanted to Kick Satan's Ass!

Okay, so I am not drinking/drugging/porning anymore. No need to congratulate me for responsible behavior. I have a bit of pent up frustration in being unemployed -- obviously God has a plan and a purpose (and a job) for me. But it is a bit disheartening not to cut the mustard, so to speak, in terms of being "qualified" to be a janitor or a stockboy. So, instead, I wanted to kick Satan's ass!

Now, I realize that Jesus has already done the job. Praise You, Lord!! But there are days, like today, I wanted to invite the Serpent of Old into the square ring and bust a Rocky Balboa on his already defeated, lying self. Secular as he is, Rocky has always been a hero to me. I've spent 28 years in the ring of sinning with drugs and pornography, and only recently have I understood what the Lord did for ME on the Cross at Calvary. FREEDOM!! But, in return, He wants me to follow Him. John 12:25-26 is good for me to remember here: "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him."

Rocky had some tough opponents: Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, Tommy Gunn, and Mason "The Line" Dixon. Win or lose, the Itallion Stallion found his heart both in and out of the ring. Of course, Rocky isn't Jesus, and in the battle of Good vs. Evil, I am proud to announce (spoiler ahead for the unbeliever!) that, at the final bell, Jesus stands victorious over Satan. So, I ask myself: "Why do I want to fight the Devil?"

Then it hits me...that's what I've done for the past 28 years!! I've climbed into the ring with him, and he's hit me with his 1-2 combination of drugs & sex. Down goes Fontaine! For so long, I kept getting up, just like Rocky, going the distance, only to wade into the flurry of punches I met. BAM! BOOM! DOWN GOES JOHNNY...AGAIN!! Punchdrunk? Stupid? Bullheaded?

In a way, I believe God has given me not only a "new heart" for Him, but also unmeasurable depths of perseverance. Yes, I keep coming back. And finally...finally...I've understood that I can humble myself before my Lord and Savior to let Satan raise his own arms in "victory" over me. It doesn't matter what the Enemy believes or thinks...he just wants me to keep fighting against him, keep "coming back" to the pleasures of sin, and keep being pummeled into the canvas of the ring time after time after time. I've finally gone all the distance I'm going in my desire to kick Satan's ass...I'm throwing in the towel and embracing my corner man, Jesus Christ!! He loves me, loves my battered and bruised soul back to life, and whispers into my ear, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Now, come follow Me!"

Spiritual warfare continues. I still have to fight against the temptations to climb into the ring at the behest of the Enemy. But in Christ my freedom is eternal. In the Lord my strength comes in humbling myself to hang up the gloves. And in Jesus I can raise my hand in victory, for His glory. His final bell will ring on the glorious Day of His choosing.