A good life comes from a good story

Tonight I'll be talking to a group of men about being a man. There are so many things I could talk about. There are some scary statistics out there about us guys. But I don't want this to be a "Hey, guys suck and there's nothing we can do about it" type of night. I want it to be a "You're life can matter and you can tell a really incredible story with your life" kind of night.

There are so many people out there telling us how much we suck. So many TV shows portray guys as losers. I get tired of commercials that portray men as hopeless idiots who can't figure their way out of any situation. I'm afraid the church hasn't been much better. I am convinced that every man (probably every person) is scared to death that they are the chump in their story even though they want to be the hero. I'll say it again because I think it's that important.

I believe that every man(probably every person is scared to death that they are the chump in their own story and that they want to be the hero.

I don't know of any man that wants to be "that guy"

• that guy that cheats on his wife
• that guy that spends so much time at work that his kids don't know him
• that guy who blows up his family by his poor choices
• that guy who spends his whole life playing video games, or fantasy games, or some other game
• that guy who fails as a father
• that guy who visits "massage" parlors
• that guy who has a computer full of porn
• that guy who is known for cheating and being less than honorable
• that guy who spent his whole life chasing things, while the people he loved did their own thing
• that guy who __________________ (fill in your own blank)

The list of failures could go on for a long time. Almost everyone is afraid that they are going to fail. For men, we're almost all afraid that we're going to be exposed. We hide. We hide behind our favorite team's jersey. We hide behind our prowess on Skyrim. We hide behind our fantasy football record. We hide behind our sports car, our tricked out truck, or business accomplishments. We hide behind the square footage in our house and how big our bonus was last quarter. We hide in our man caves. But…

the walls always come down

A number of years ago, I watched a movie. I don't remember the title unfortunately. In the movie, there is an incredibly powerful scene. The men in the movie have hidden in a Star Wars themed man cave. The wives think they are having affairs with women. So the wives follow them. It all blows up. Then one of the guys drops the bomb of the movie:

My wife and I fight because she wants to spend time with me. I don't know what to do with her if I spend time with her…what if she doesn't like me?

That in a nutshell, I think is most guys fears. Maybe because most guys don't like themselves. And maybe that is because we're telling bad stories by actually pursuing the things we know that we don't want to be.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

We can tell good stories. The problem is that being a hero is hard. It's scary to face a monster. It's scary to realize that there are people who truly depend upon us to make sense of the world. I'm convinced that this is why the war metaphor is so seductive to almost every man I know. We would rather risk our lives than risk rejection by people we love. We would rather face some mythical monster than truly open ourselves up to our children. We don't want them to see our warts, our failures, the cracks in our life.

We would rather live a lonely, fraudulent life, than an honest, open fulfilled one. But we don't have to live that way.

We can hug spend copious amounts of time with our family. We can. We may have to make changes in how we approach material things. We may not be able to buy a boat, or a new TV. We may have to turn off the computer and log off of Facebook. We can sit and listen. If we miss a game, it's OK, most people won't remember who won that game in fifteen days, let alone fifteen years anyhow. But time spent with your family will be remembered.

Good lives come from lives that tell good stories. Of course the question is what makes a good story. Probably from the very things that we work hard to avoid because they scare us, but that is for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will look at what makes a good story and how that matters to life.

or

you could come to Impact Church in Lowell tonight at 6pm. We're going to have a steak dinner as well so even if my time is boring, the steak will rock. 🙂