By Todd Lockwood
Lord willing, my wife and I are going to have our little boy in July. This has made me think about how I will teach him on how to become a man. For those of you who have watched the movie Courageous, you might remember the men asking each other when they first thought they were a man. One of them believed that they became a man when their father told them they were a man. At the end of the conversation, another confesses that they believe God wants them to call the man out in their son. But a father must know what a man is before they could ever call out the man in their son. This has me thinking of what it really means to be a man. Of course, one must first decide who defines "man" before they can describe what a man is. For most this may seem like a subjective term, and there may be some nuances that are, but the foundation comes from an objective authority, the word of God. The word of God did not become my authority until I received a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ about six years ago. Since then God has been working on my heart to become a man as he defines it in his word. I don't know how much I have changed since my salvation but I know that as long as I continue to obey the word of God, that I will conform to the image of a man, the image of Christ. Every soul has the individual responsibility to either accept or reject his word as the authority and this includes my son. But as long as I continue as a good example my son may see the worth in being like Christ.
Courageous Movie Scene: When Did You Know?
Before my salvation my definition of a man had some similarities but it was not even close to being the same. Some of the following statements are things that I probably would have not said before my salvation:
Boys fight, Men talk
Boys cry, Men cry
Boys rage, Men withhold
Boys hit, Men love
Boys hate, Men forgive
Feel free to share what the Bible says about being a man...
