Manliness

Josh here,

In the Christian Men’s Network videos by Ed Cole, in one of the videos he talked about ‘identifying with Christ,’ mentioning that true manliness was synonymous with Christlikeness. That made me think about what it means to be a man – a real man.

Society tells us that a man sits around drinking beer and watching football - selfish and lazy, uninterested in the world around him. He only stands up for what he believes when it interferes with his own comfort, then he loses his temper and becomes abusive and unreasonable. True, there are many examples of that kind of man, even among our Christian brothers, and I won’t deny that my own sinful flesh desires to act that way.

While I agree with Ed Cole about Christ being the primary example of true manliness, there is one other figure that I greatly admire and would like to suggest is perhaps among the greatest examples of true men: Pa.

Not my own pa, although I think he’s indeed a very great man. I’m speaking of Pa Ingalls – Pa of “Little House on the Prairie.” Those of you who have read the books (not the TV series) will remember many things about this great man: How he knew just about everything useful a man could know, how he attacked a bear at night with nothing but a tree branch (turned out the bear was a stump, but he didn’t know that until he whacked it), how he walked 200 miles to find work to feed his family, how he built several cabins and buildings with his own two hands, he saved his family and property from a prairie fire which surrounded them, how he stood up to a huge crowd of angry railroad men, how he survived for 3 days outside in a blizzard, and how he worked extremely hard every single day except Sunday. When faced with devastating setbacks and hardships, he stood up to them with iron fortitude and bravery.

But there’s more to Pa than that – he also went with very little food so that his starving family could eat, he repeatedly risked his life in The Long Winter to haul hay for burning to keep his family warm enough to survive (and then spent all day every day for weeks on end twisting the hay into sticks to feed the fire), he stood for principle regardless of the odds, he walked 5 miles to town to buy himself some new boots only to give his boot money to the parson to help pay for the church bell (and in those old boots he walked another 200 miles to find work). He was respected and admired by the entire town, he could play the fiddle and sing like nobody’s business, he spelled down the entire town in a spelling bee, and when his daughter Laura was frustrated and bored with constant studying, he roused the whole town to put on weekly entertainments to please her. He had a great sense of humor, trained his children very well, went to church every week (when there was a church to attend), and never complained about all the hardship he suffered. He was always whistling and singing, and made friends with anyone who was willing – white man or Indian.

So what makes Pa such a man? His physical strength? His knowledge? His wisdom? All of the above? When one boils down the essence of manliness, I think a good term would be ‘sacrifice.’ A real man sacrifices himself to help others. He helps his wife, his children, his neighbors, his community, his country and his world. He fights the ‘inner battle’ of selfishness and gives up his own comforts to help, encourage, and strengthen others. That means when he gets angry, he keeps his anger in check, rather than letting it fly out in some way. When he’s tired, he keeps doing what needs to be done rather than rest and relax, until he’s truly tired. When he’s hungry, he makes sure others are served and fed before himself, and when he’s in need, he does what he can for himself first so as not to be a burden on others.

Pa fitted this definition splendidly, and Christ fitted it perfectly. I don’t fit it nearly as well as I should or as I would like, but I can say that I’m getting better. Hopefully, every man that reads this will also admit his own failure, and strive, with God’s help, to become more manly and remember to sacrifice himself daily for others. Sacrifices can be as small as playing with a child when you’d rather read the news, but sacrifice we must in order to be considered manly in God’s eyes.