Category: Wildman Journey (Page 38 of 87)

I was recently been convicted by the words of  the Prophet Amos, “Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times for the times are evil” (Amos 5:13).  A prudent man is one who ”acts with or shows care and thought for the future.”  The NLT reads, “So those who are smart keep their mouths shut, for it is an evil time.”  The Amplified brings out the thought of people not listening to the truth, nor having regard for a godly witness. “Therefore he who is prudent and has insight will keep silent at such a [corrupt and evil] time, for it is an evil time [when people will not listen to truth and will disregard those of godly character].”

The Message expresses the thought of being prudent in an emphatic manner.  “Justice is a lost cause.  Evil is epidemic.  Decent people throw up their hands.  Protest and rebuke are useless, a waste of breath.”  The ESV Study Bible has this note: “If someone were to speak out against the manifest injustice taking place, his own life might be in danger, while his objections would do no good because they could not stop the ongoing, entrenched evil.”  As I read these words, I desire to be a prudent man. My natural tendency is to speak the truth and “set people straight.” But there are times to keep quiet.

There is a cultural tsunami building on the horizon.  A tsunami begins with an earthquake far out at sea.  The shock wave travels through the water towards shore.   Its  intensity is realized once it reaches the shore as a wall of water with devastating force.  “The wall of water,” suggests Rod Dreher, “is coming at us.  There’s no holding it back.”  I agree.  Men, there is little use whining or complaining about our culture losing its Christian worldview and consensus.  That time has past.

Rest assured, God’s prophetic word is being heard in our day .  Amos reminds us, “The lion has roared – who will not fear?  The Sovereign Lord has spoken – who can but prophecy (Amos 3:8).  We need to exercise patience. God is sounding the trumpet.  Are we alert to the sound?  “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill.  Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.  It is close at hand” (Joel 2:1).  God told Habakkuk, “This vision is for the future time.  It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.  If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place.  It will not be delayed” (Hab. 2:3 NLT).

Christian men can easily fall into the trap of bemoaning  how “justice is a lost cause” and “evil is epidemic” in society today.  Our witness can turn negative and counterproductive to an authentic Christian witness. How are we going to practice his presence in the midst of the coming darkness?  We wait for the Lord: “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who wait for him!” (Is.30:18).

It is prudent not the enter into the highly-charged destructive rhetoric of today’s cultural narrative.  Rather we need to show love, forbearance and mercy to those who so strongly oppose Jesus and his Kingdom.  I readily admit to the men,  whom I  have been a witness, that I am reluctant to enter into a discussion or debate regarding political and cultural issues.  I say I am simply a follower of Jesus, now living in his kingdom reign in the earth.  In that sense I am quiet.

Recently I had a unexpected inspiration moment.  My wife, Judy and I have just moved to a  comfortable senior apartment complex in Brainerd, Mn.  We both felt the time was right for this move, even though it would mean down-sizing, making new friends, and finding a new church home.  After our decision to move, it so happened that our daughter, who was going to eventually move into our lake place with her family, lost their home during hurricane Michael in Florida.  We were glad to  welcome our daughter into our home, since they were now homeless.  We could see God’s hand in the move.

On the second night of occupying our new apartment, I was out walking at dusk and happened to be looking up at our apartment window.  I saw Judy sitting at her desk, busy writing on her computer.  It is hard to explain the sensation I had as I looked at her in the window. I was very thankful that the attractive women I saw in the second story window was my wife.  I was filled with gratitude for being married these past 53 years to such a wonderful helpmate. She is a crown in my life, helping make me a better man. “A virtuous and excellent wife [worthy of honor] is the crown of her husband” (Prov. 12:4).

In Proverbs 18:22 we read, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.”  I can certainly testify to the way in which God has blessed me through my wife. I could never have made this move without Judy by my side.   Our decision to move off the lake to an apartment in town was a major step for both of us. We saw it, at our age, as probably our last great adventure together. We have felt that God had prepared us for this new journey. Through prayer and discernment we knew this was what we should be doing at this stage in our lives.  We leaned on each other through the whole process.  I am very grateful to have my bride by my side.  She is a wonderful help mate

Now that I have been out of parish life for almost nine years, my wife is flourishing in her spiritual gifts. I see my role as supporting and encouraging her ministry, after having her faithful support for 40 years.  Her daily devotions which are read by well over a 100 persons continues to bring daily encouragement and inspiration. I am truly amazed at how God speaks to her as she writes her daily blog.  It is a gift from God.   Judy is the greatest earthly treasure I have.  “An excellent woman  [one who is spiritual, capable, intelligent, and virtuous], who is he who can find her?  Her value is more precious than jewels and her worth is far above rubies or pearls. The heart of her husband trusts in her [with secure confidence], and he will have no lack of gain” (Prov. 31:10-11 -Amplified).

When my wife published her first book of devotions, I wrote in the forward that my wife was the most consistent Christian I have known.  She has an inner beauty, “the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit [one that is calm and self-controlled, not overanxious, but serene and spiritually mature] which is very precious in the sight of God” (I Peter 3:4 – amplified).  This gives a description of the woman I saw in the window of our new home at “Northern Lakes Senior Living.”

Eugene Peterson, the translator of the Message Bible, recently passed away at the age of 85.  He was a very significant influence in shaping my understanding of  the calling to be a parish pastor.  I discovered Peterson in the mid–80’s when I was shaking off stereo types of being a Lutheran pastor as being primarily concerned with doctrine and practice, while forgetting soul care.  In those days soulfulness was thought of as being too narrow, emotionally charged and focused on navel-gazing.  I learned from Peterson that the role of pastor was simply “practicing the presence of Jesus” among the people.  That concept was liberating in my ministry.  I determined  from that time on to be a simple, loving follower of Jesus.

While  being aware of my own soul life, as a feeling, intuitive guy,  I had difficulty justifying my awareness in a tradition that put the priority on “head knowledge” verse the compliment of  “heart knowledge.”  In my first 10 years of ministry I felt misunderstood and not able to conform to the institutional norm for pastors.  Inner transformation and character formation were concepts that I had not heard of in my pastoral and theological training. Peterson was the first contemporary protestant pastor who gave me the framework and the words to see the pastor as a “spiritual director” and the ministry of “soul care” as the primarily concern of a pastor.

I can’t express how much I  owe  Peterson.  He showed me that the pastoral vocation was a call to be personal.  It meant being a good listener; having concern to the inner life of others.  Preaching was visualizing persons with hungry souls, not simply a listening audience.  It meant loving people and not using them.  The pastor was to be a person of prayer and devotion.  It was out of his own personal relationship with God that he was able to shepherd his flock.  Peterson maintained that our core identity, “comes out as persons-in-relationship.”  “‘Soul’ is our word for this,” observes Peterson. “It is the most personal term we have for who we are.  The term ‘soul’ is an assertion of wholeness, the totality of what it means to be a human being.”

I never forgot his response when asked why he enjoyed being a pastor of a local congregation.  He said, “I like to mess.”  This was liberating for me when times got difficult and when I felt spiritually dry.  He helped me to see that in the midst of brokenness of the people of God, the Spirit of Jesus was present bring forth life. Jesus was holding all things together.

Col 1:16-17 in the Message says this so well. “We look at his Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created.  For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank of angels – everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.  He was there before any of it came into existence and hold it all together right up to this moment.”

For me at this moment in my journey, my wife and I happen to be looking for a new church home.  We left our lake home and are living in a senior apartment complex in Brainerd, Mn.  We are now seeking  a place where we sense God is present, doing his hidden work of bringing life to folks we desire to follow him.  We long to see God at work in “the mess.”  We know God will bring us to a  church in which we will see the hidden work of Jesus bringing all things together through the work of his Spirit.

When does sexual harassment take place?  “The past few months has ushered in a unprecedented level of awareness and shock at the pervasive experience of sexual harassment,’ notes Roxanne Stone, editor in chief of Barna Group.  Barna asked Americans to identify specific acts that they considered to be harassment.  “Nearly half of all American adults admit to experiencing or witnessing sexual harassment at some point in their lives.”  The nature of the behavior was either verbal (77%) or physical (67%).  “The answer differs based on gender, but Americans say that sexual harassment is most often about being touched or groped (women: 96%, men: 86%) or being forced to do something sexual (women: 91%, men:83%).

Three in ten adults (29%) report that they have been sexually harassed.  Women are nearly three times more likely than men to report experiencing sexual harassment.  The reported noted women (73%) were more likely than men (57%) to say the sexual harassment they experienced or witnessed was physical.  Women also give accounts of verbal sexual harassment just as much as physical (74% verbal and 73% physical).  Men feel or recognize harassment more often as verbal (men: 81%, women: 73%).

The data from Barna seems to reinforce what I have observed in my years as a pastor.  Men are more likely to be the ones doing the harassing rather than women.  The harassment is mainly verbal with men in the church.  It is interesting that such things as staring (19%:women, 18%:men ), winking (18%:women, 12%:men) and light-hearted flirting (women:12%, men:12%) were far down the list.  I mention these three items because for Christian men who desire to live in moral purity and sexual integrity, these items matter.

Men, my testimony is that light-hearted flirting matters.  Our attitude toward women speaks louder then our words.  We are held to a higher standard.  Moral purity which is the foundation of sexual integrity begins in the heart of a man.  Remember Jesus’ words, “But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already commited adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27).  Proverbs 6:23 warns men, “Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes” (Prov 6:25).  Job said of himself, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1)

If Christian men are going to be trusted, worthy exemplars of moral purity in relation to women, it will have to be demonstrated in our more hidden responses to women.  For example, I have tried hard to never send the wrong message to women.  I have purposed to “countinence” the face of a young woman and not her body.  As the old saying goes, “You can look at the menu, but don’t order.”  For men “staring” and “winking” are off limits.  They send a mixed message.  When it comes to “making sexual comments about looks/body,”  experienced by 86% of the women in the Barna report, the man of God should know better.

The Barna report ends by noting, “We are now beginning to grapple with the intensely sexual ideas that have been allowed to define gender relationships, not to mention the extremely complex power dynamics at play in society where men still hold the majority of top-level positions…..Pastors and spiritual leaders….must be ready to talk with their members……Churches have an opportunity to be leaders in this disorienting conversion.”

I agree totally.  As men of God, we can lead the way through the present day wasteland of sexual dysfunction between men and women.  But we need to head the words of Proverbs 4:23, “Guard you heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”

Are you an Overcomer in the spiritual battle raging between  evil and the kingdom of God or are you being overcome?  Men, we need to be reminded that the lack of civility and the hateful rhetoric of our day is due to the father of lies – Satan.  Jesus identifies him as, “a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his  native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).  When truth and integrity are missing in our public discourse, brought about by the murderer, the result is character assassination on a broad scale.

When discerning  the cause of the discord, hatred and anger in our nation, we need to see it as a  battle between the forces of Satan and the reign of Jesus’ kingdom.  Paul  gives the right  perspective, “For our fight is not against any physical enemy: it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual.  We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil” (Eph 6:12 – Phillips).  Are you ready to face hate, bigotry, and irrational reactions.

As a follower of Jesus, you can be expected to be hated, whether you like it or not.   Jesus warned us that we would be hated.  “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as it own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates us” (John 15:18-9).  “All men will hate you because of me,” Jesus tells us, ” but he who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Mk 13:13). The distain for the followers of Jesus is evident in the cultural wars.  This hatred can be irrational. “They hated me without reason” ( John 15:25).  “Do not be surprised,” John reminds us, “if the world hates you” (I John 3:13)

It is hard to be an Overcomer if we respond with  hated in your heart. Remember the hatred will  only  intensify in the days to come.  Don’t allow yourself to be over come with anger or resentment.  In Jesus you can be an Overecomer.  “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.  Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Revelation gives us a glimpse into the intensity of the present day hatred.  We  read of a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.  For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down” (Rev. 12:10).  Then we are warned, “But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you!  He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short” (Rev 12:12).

Men keep  your heart open to the awareness of Jesus presence at the center, in your soul.  John give us this wonderful promise. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you greater than the one who is in the world” (I John 4:4).  We can learn to think like Jesus. “Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him.  Think of your suffering as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way” (I Pet. 4:1-2 – Message)

Psalm 139 begins with  “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me” (Ps 139:1).  I thought of these words while reflecting on thoughts from spiritual writer, Louis Evely. “This activity [God’s loving power] of His most often occurs in a place we can’t enter, at the root of our being, for that’s where God reaches us, where he operates, molds us, and ceaselessly perfects His work in us.”  This loving power know us from the inside out.  “God along knows us as we are inside and He alone loves us even though we lose all our qualities, because He loves, not our qualities, but us.  Only He will put up with us forever.”

When it seems nothing is being done by us, much may have been done in us. Teresa of Avila observed that we would be surprised at what God is doing in our soul.  God is at work in  our depths far beyond what we can imagine or comprehend. Our part is to surrender to the process. “The Spirit also helps us in our present limitations.  For example, we do not know how to pray worthily, but his Spirit within us is actually praying for us in those agonizing longings which cannot find words. He who knows the heart’s secrets understands the Spirit’s intention as he prays according to God’s will for those who love him” ( Rom. 8:26-7  Phillips).

Knowing that God,  “alone loves us even though we lose all our qualities,” we can pray, “Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross- examine and test me, see for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong – then guide me on the road to eternal life” ( Ps 139:23-4 – Message). We can pray with confidence because of the Spirit within, “operates, molds us, and ceaselessly perfects His work in us.” This is transformation – God changing us from the inside out. “Now to him who by his power within us is able to do indefinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine…(Eph 3:20).  God is doing much more than we can imagine.

God  loves us not for our qualities, but for who we are.  “To us, the greatest demonstration of God’s love for us has been his sending his only Son into the world to give us life through him.  We see real love, not in the fact that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to make personal atonement for our sins’ ( I John 4:10-11 – Phillips).  This is condescension – not our reaching out to God, but God coming all the way down to where we are.  God loves us as we are not what we think we should be.  “Yet the proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us” ( Romans 5:8 – Phillips).

Jesus’ love for us will endure to the end. “I’m  absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us” (Romans 8:37-39).  God’s unconditional love give us confidence to keep reaching out to Jesus and keep moving onward.  With Paul we declare, “But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me…..By no means do I count myself and expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye n the goal, where God is beckoning us onward – to Jesus.  I off and running, and I’m not turning back” ( Phil 3:13-14 – Message).

Pop-rock pioneer of the 2000’s, Avril Lavigne, after an absence of five years has produced a worship song that reveals her cry to God for help after encountering a near-death experience.  She has been battling Lyme disease since 2014.  Her new single,  “Head Above Water,” depicts her struggle.

“God keep my head above water/ Don’t let me drown/ It gets harder/ I’ll meet you there at the altar/ As I fall down to my knees/ Don’t let me drown/ Don’t let me drown” are the words of the chorus.  She apparently had a experience of meeting God in an experience she describes as being on her knees at the altar.

I down loaded her song because her heart felt lyrics are  words I could identify with when I have felt like being underwater.  There was a time in the early 2000’s when I was on the verge of depression.  My wife told me that if I didn’t get out of my “pit,” she was going to take me to our personal physician so I could get a prescription for depression.  I was able to climb out of the pit, only by keeping my spiritual eyes on Jesus and crying out for mercy.  My experience made me appreciate those believers who fall into the pit and struggle to get out.

Ms Lavigne’s words are heart felt.  “And I can’t see in the stormy weather/ I can’t seem to keep it all together/ And I can’t swim the ocean like this forever/ And I can’t breathe.”  At the time, I had been a pastor for 30 years, having been in a lot of stormy weather.  But I was not keeping it all together.  I was underwater, having difficulty breathing spiritually. I was simply going through the motions, not allowing anyone to know how weak and fragile I felt. Life  was like stormy weather.  It was frustrating for my wife.  But thank God, she prayed me through the storm.

Avril shares her story of almost giving up.  “God, keep my head above water/ I lose my breath at the bottom/ Come rescue me, I’ll be waiting/ I’m too young to fall asleep.”  I wanted to be rescued, but I did not now how it would happen.  I had to wait.  The issue was my perspective of myself and God.

Psalm 40, while not giving the image of being under water, but rather of sinking into a “slimy pit,” gave me a picture that I could hang unto in my struggle. “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” (Ps. 40:1-2).

The one image that has stayed with me is the sense that I was down in a pit, with my hands griping the opening above me, while a shaft of light streamed into the gloom of the pit.  I had to keep my focus on the opening above me.  The only thing I could do was to hang on and cry out for God to be merciful to me.  I had to do this for myself. Either my wife and the few other guys who I had allowed into my life could help.  Eventually the Lord placed me on a rock.  As a result I had “a firm place to stand.”

So my advice to anyone feeling underwater or in a pit – hang on by simple trust in  Jesus and cry out continually for mercy.  You have not be abandoned.  You will be stronger because of your trail.  You will also have empathy for others in the pit.

As an older white guy in the Northwoods, I have a concern for the status of young, white, males in America, especially those who have given their allegiance to King Jesus and His kingdom reign in America.  Has the dominant cultural narrative begun to abandon the idea of a man being innocent until proven guilty by due process?  Has the #metoo movement gone to far?

Listen to what an army mom and homeschooling mother of four boys had to say: “I cannot accept a world in which my sons will be raised under the tyranny of a lawless, vindictive society that wants to subdue and oppress men in the name of equality for women.  It’s time to take a stand.  Mammas, we have to fight for our men, because they are in danger… Your father is, your husband is, and your sons are.”

Contrast her comments with those of Georgetown Professor C. Christiane Fair in a recent twit.  “All of them [men] deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps.  Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes.”  Today, notes R. R. Reno, “The rage over sex is perhaps the most powerful in our body politic today.”  We are at a crisis point.  Are we witnessing an intensification of the “gender wars?”

The Brett Kavanaugh hearings made this all too obvious in our national consciousness.  I am deeply concerned.  I  respect and admire Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for her painful, heartfelt testimony of being sexually assaulted as a teenager.  She is 100% sure it was Judge Kavanaugh.  But the judge swears before God he is innocent.  He has many close friends who agree.

My issue is with the minority party in this particular instance.  They seem to be embracing the rage against men for betraying the sexual revolution by making sex dangerous rather than safe.  In my opinion they are using Dr. Ford for their own political advantage.  In the meantime they are ruining the life of a man who has not been given due process.  I am deeply disturbed that as a nation we are an audience to the destroying of the lives of  two individuals created in the image of God.

I very much appreciate the reminder given by John Stonestreet, when he was reminded of C.S. Lewis’ sermon, “The Weight of Glory” in which he said:  “…It is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another – all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.  There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry , snub, and exploit….”  Stonestreet reminds us, “people are ends; they are never means.”  I want to remember this as the Kavanaugh saga continues.

My advice, men.  Take your stand in Christ!  “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand!  Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you” (Gal. 5:1 – Message).  Don’t let the dominant narrative, regarding male and female relationships, put you in a box. Don’t let the rage over sex intimidate you, since you have been set free in Jesus.  “In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female.  Among us you are all equal!” (Gal. 3:28 – Message).  Remember, “…Use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows” (Gal. 5:14 – Message).

I continue to be fascinated, inspired and amused by the “Jordon Peterson Phenomena.”  Most interesting has been the reaction  from social critics who have had some of their cherished assumptions about men and women challenged.   A quote from David French described well what is happening in  the social media regarding Peterson.  French observed, “Peterson stands out because he is playing in the Left’s cultural sandbox.  He’s disrupting an emerging secular cultural monopoly with arguments about history, tradition, and the deep truths about human nature that the cultural radicals had long thought they’d banished to the fringe.”

While Peterson’s orthodoxy is less than an evangelical guy like myself would hope for, he definitely has beliefs that favor a Christian worldview.  He gives clear guidance on morals and manners, he takes evil seriously and he values the church and traditional family values. Peterson in his writings, videos and public interviews is not attempting to reach a Christian audience.  What has been called “the Peterson Effect” describes Peterson’s effort to bring the findings of social science to bear on the cultural issues surrounding men and women.   His findings counter the progressive attempt of eliminating male-female differences.  “One ingredient in the astounding fame of Jordon Peterson,” writes Mark Bauerlein, “is his capacity to show just how lazy, obtuse, unprepared, smug, knee-jerk and prejudiced are many journalists at leading publications.”

Shame Morris in an article at Break Point reflects on Peterson’s earnestness. This is in evident when he speaks about young men.  He speaks with solemnity and gravity, being persuasive because he speaks with deep passion.  Without irony, mockery or pretense of superiority, Morris imagines Peterson saying to young men, “You know what?  You’re not a monster, and you’re not an idiot, and you’re not what’s wrong with the world, and I understand you’re feeling lost and don’t know what to do with you life.  But resentment and blaming other people is not going to get you anywhere.  I’m here to help you find your way out of this black hole of impotence, and I want you to start by cleaning your room.”

The idea of earnestness in Peterson’s message has struck a cord with me.  I concur with Bauerlein when he speaks of his influence.  “To watch someone stand up to it [cultural smugness], to hear him cite clinical data and hold firmly against the party line they know is dishonest and coercive – that goes a long way to explaining the Peterson phenomenon.”  Peterson is willing to go public with his deeply held convictions, knowing that he will not be accepted.  Three  characteristics in Peterson’s demeanor are convicting to me.  First, his willingness to suffer.  He believes that life contains unavoidable suffering, that needs to be embraced.  Redemptive suffering, the call to carry the cross, and the need to sacrifice are in short supply in today’s church.  Jesus tells us, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” ( Matt 16:24).

Secondly, Peterson speaks with passion.  He speaks with deep passion about his ideas, communicating with a sense of honesty and sincerity.  Paul reminds us,  “The Message that points to Christ on the cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense” (I Cor. 1: 18 – Message).

Thirdly, Peterson can be confrontational not willing to accommodate the culture, while remaining respectful and level headed.  Young men are drawn to Peterson because he is a rock in the cultural swamp in which many men are sinking. Jesus tells us, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” ( John 6:63).

At a recent congregational meeting at my church, I read from Jeremiah 6:16-17 – Message:  “Go stand at the crossroads and look around.  Ask for directions to the old road, the tried-and-true road.  Then take it.  Discover the right route for your souls.  But they said, ‘Nothing doing,  We aren’t going that way.’  I even provided watchmen for them, to warn them, to set off the alarm.  But the people said, ‘It’s a false alarm.  It doesn’t concern us.'”  These words could describe the passive attitude of many Christian men who, being unaffirmed and not having a sense of well-being in Jesus, capitulate to the dominant narrative they absorb every day.

Jeremiah’s words reflects the concept of “apatheism,” which answers the God question with a  shrug and a calm “whatever.”   Ben Sixsmith and Paul Rowan write, “With roots in the practical atheism and deism of the Enlightenment, ‘apatheism’ is embodied in French philosopher Denis Diderot’s famous remark that ‘it is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.'”  They go on to write about the “unholy trinity of apatheism” – a lack of reason to believe, a lack of motivation to believe and a lack of will to believe.

In a culture that is growing skeptical and ever more hostile to a biblical worldview, we will be tempted to compromise our core beliefs and fall victim to “apatheism.”   Are you committed to the truth?  Are you tempted to compromise the truth in your private life?  Are you  indifferent and unwilling to speak the truth?  Peter  challenges us,  “Don’t give the opposition a second thought.  Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your master.  Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy” (I Peter 3: 14-15 – Message).

You might be standing today before a crossroad  in your life journey, one that may compromise your core beliefs. Be warned! Compromising will bring cracks into the foundation of your character.  Jeremiah invites you to stand and look around.  This implies not being in a hurry.  Slow down, while asking for directions in finding the “old road, the tried-and-true road.”  The NIV says, “the ancient paths.”  This is why we all need a “band of brothers,” who provide “the mutual consolation” of other like-minded men.  Find other mature men who have walked on the “ancient paths.”

Men, when you stand at the crossroads or that fork in the road, you and you alone will have to choose.  At the core of the masculine soul is the call to “orientation, direction, order and responsibility.”  That is, make the right decision and stick with it. Mark my words, you will be tested in your resolve to follow through on taking the initiative.  Don’t let self-pity, self-hatred or anger get the best of your discernment.  The choices you make bring you into the frontlines of the battle in our culture over truth, order, integrity and honesty.  Your voice and character are needed right where you are, in our sphere of influence.  Don’t join those around you saying, “Nothing doing.  We aren’t going that way.”

In the process, “You will find rest for your souls” (v. 16 NIV).  You will be able to walk through the chaos, uncertainty and mistrust all around you.  God will provide watchmen to warn us, setting off an alarm.  Don’t be caught saying, “It’s a false alarm. It doesn’t concern us.”