the 3 most important things to focus on as a Dad, and 2 of them are not what you think

"A father is the man who can change a world he will not be part of by building the tiny human that is part of him."

Craig D. Lounsbrough

"As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust."

Psalms 103:13-14

Being a Dad these days can be overwhelming. There is so much conflicting advice about how to show up well that it can be both paralyzing and exhausting. Amazon.com has tens of thousands of books on parenting, often saying the opposite things from each other. Google is even worse. What is deemed essential in one philosophy is dismissed in another. This can create a deep anxiety and fear that you aren’t doing enough and you aren’t doing it right.

And this complexity is compounded by the intensity of the cultural moment our kids are growing up in. Childhood and adolescence have always been turbulent years, but the stakes seem so much higher now. We feel pressure to help them build a biblical identity, fight secularism, find their vocational call, have a healthy and godly sexuality, and deal with anxiety. It’s so much all at once.

Don’t you wish there were a few, clear principles you could focus on as a Dad to love your kids well? A few things you can do instead of being overwhelmed by what you can’t? As it turns out, there are. Scientific American reported a study with a list of the top 10 parenting factors that produce healthy and confident kids based on extensive research on parenting. You can read the whole list for yourself here, but I want to highlight the top 3 because I think they are areas men tend to struggle with. They are:

1-Love and affection. 2- Stress management. 3- Relationship skills. 

Let’s unpack these for a moment. 

1-LOVE AND AFFECTION

Showing affection when our children are small can tend to be much easier than when they grow. They are often warm towards us, celebrate our return, and return affection freely. As they get older and begin to rebel, we can move into confronting and criticizing all kinds of behavior. Parenting becomes a power struggle for control, not a relationship we nurture. But it’s in exactly these times that we have to show unconditional love and affection. Here are a few practical ways to do this.

Words of Affirmation
It has often been said that "the way you speak to your child becomes their inner voice." I meet so many men whose lives have been defined by harsh words spoken over them in anger or critique in a moment of frustration. A man's deep sense of self is often defined by what they hear about themselves as they grow. Try and keep the "5:1" encouragement to criticism ratio others have written about. Try instilling confidence by catching them doing things right. Try validating their preferences and interests rather than criticizing them for not being yours. Try and make your voice an echo of our heavenly father’s, so their inner voice is shaped by God's affirmation and not the enemy's accusation.  

Physical Affection
Growing up as a "typical Aussie bloke," I wasn’t a part of a culture that valued physical affection. But over the years, I have come to learn the power of a safe, welcoming, and loving touch. I regularly try and hug my adult son (who’s bigger than me) to simply let him know I am for him and that he matters to me. I want him to feel physical affection from a man who often lives in his head. I always want my daughter to know both the protective and tender side of me. Physical affection can foster emotional connection.

Emotional Attentiveness
Often in our busyness, we are not as attentive to our kids as they need us to be. We can be dismissive, too quick to prescribe solutions, and project out of our own experiences at their age. But learning how to enter into their world, honor what they are going through, and help them make sense of their feelings is a key part of fatherhood. Our job is not to tell them to "get over it" but to help walk them through it. This is where bonds are built for the long haul. 

Hug your kids. Play with your kids. Affirm your kids. Validate their feelings. Speak love over them. And every now and then, spoil them. 

2- STRESS MANAGEMENT

As a society, we have done a poor job of honoring and preserving childhood. Kids are being sexualized at increasingly younger ages, exposed to traumatic events through our media, and pressured to perform in an increasingly competitive world. It’s no wonder they are dealing with record rates of anxiety. But it’s our job to shield them from as much of our own stress as possible. We don’t want to compound what they are already carrying.

Kids are often emotionally attuned to the anxiety of their parents. So we can unintentionally distribute stress to them that belongs to us. And this can be SO HARD not to do. But it's essential that we try.

• We have to guard our anger and temper so that we don’t explode on our kids what we have accumulated at work.

• We have to make sure our kids don’t feel like a burden to us when we are facing financial pressure. 

• We have to make sure that our own inner struggles of anxiety, loneliness, and fear are not projected onto our kids, or that we don’t use them in unhealthy ways to deal with adult issues that don’t belong to them.

Secondhand stress has robbed many kids of innocence and joy. Our kids tend to borrow our nervous system. We want to give them the gift of managing stress well by modeling life-giving practices and a godly pace of life, rest, and joy. Our homes should be a place of rest and retreat, not another place to experience adult anxiety.

• You may need a ritual at the door to reset yourself emotionally before you come home.

• You may need a life-giving hobby to fill the tank.

• You may need to hold back details on work or family issues that they don’t need to know about. 

• You may need to cast your cares on the Lord more intentionally to live out of a sense of peace and trust.

We live in a sin-stained world. Stress and anxiety will come for our kids. Let’s hold it off for as long as possible so they can get the childhood they deserve. 

3-RELATIONSHIP SKILLS

Whether we like it or not, we are the model of marriage for our kids’ future relationships. We set the relational "norms" for what they expect of others and accept for themselves. One of the best things we can do to help our kids thrive is love our wives. We need to ask for grace to affirm and not criticize our wives, model healthy conflict, show appropriate physical affection, and enjoy spending time together. This doesn’t mean you fake things, pretend, or never fight, but it means you show your affection and commitment. 

Don’t put your wife down in front of your kids. Don’t triangulate them into your fights. Don’t dismiss their mother behind her back. Treat your wife the way you hope a man would treat your daughter, with consideration, kindness, and respect. 

• Get counseling if you need it.

• Prioritize date nights and fun trips.

• Pursue her heart.

• Write little notes of kindness and love.

• Save emotional energy for her to process her day.

• Listen well.

THIS IS ENOUGH

1-Love and affection. 2- Stress management. 3- Relationship skills. 

The truth is, these 3 simple things will be enough to focus on without drowning in all the other ideas. Building this kind of relational bond will create a foundation where we can form our kids’ faith, shape their character, and discipline them in love without driving them away.

So this week:

Why not hug your kids and tell them how much you love them?
Why not splurge on something fun, even if finances are tight?
And affirm your wife in front of your kids, and kiss her till they complain.

If you focus on everything, you will accomplish nothing; but if you focus on these, something beautiful will emerge. Loving attention, anxiety protection, and marital affection. This is enough.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

grace is terrible math

"Grace is terrible math."

Josh Howerton

"Grace is enough. He is enough. Jesus is enough."

Brennan Manning

The Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t map neatly onto the values of the modern world.

There are so many things that define Jesus’ life that just don’t seem to meet our cultural expectations. One of the most startling ones is how inefficient Jesus’ ministry seemed to be.

So much of what is valued in our world today is marked by size, scale, and attention. Importance seems to be measured by observable impact. But this kind of thinking didn’t even factor into the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus spent 30 years of his life in obscurity. Manual labor, attending synagogue, dealing with family drama, living a very normal life. God was in the village for 30 years and no one seemed to notice. He spent three years in public ministry but thirty years in obscurity. That’s a 90 percent obscurity rate for 10 percent public ministry. My friend Brad Cooper calls this "developing in the dark." Jesus seemed to be more concerned about potency than publicity.

In Jesus’ parables, this is only heightened.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of the shepherd who is willing to leave the 99 sheep to go after the one. There is no cost-benefit analysis here. There is no collateral damage in the fields of Bethlehem. There is the love of the shepherd willing to risk it all for the lost. Love is not reasonable. Love does not fit into human equations. The math of heaven does not fit into the metrics of earth.

In Matthew 20, the scandal continues in the parable of the workers.

The laborers who work 1 hour get paid the same as those who work all day. This violates all HR regulations in the modern world. This reeks of unfairness. This screams of injustice. Yet Jesus’ response highlighting the shocking grace of God still confronts us centuries later. "Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?" Grace will always be a scandal to those trying to earn love.

Consider Jesus’ vision of giving.

In Luke 21, Jesus’ views verge differently from the world. When the rich were giving in full view of everyone else, a widow sneaks by and drops in two small coins, an insignificant measure in everyone’s eyes but his.

"This poor widow has put in more than all the others."

No special dinner for the widow. No building is named in her honor. No extra time with the senior pastor. Yet to Jesus, she is at the top of the generosity list in heaven.

Or consider Jesus’ resistance to the metrics of human possibility.

In John 6, a crowd has gathered to hear Jesus teach, but they run out of food.

Jesus calls the disciples to feed the crowd, but the math will not add up.

"There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?" 

For the disciples, 5 + 2 = a starving crowd

For Jesus, 5 + 2 = the feeding of 5000.

Jesus’ math is fueled by the possibilities of God's kingdom, not the limits of human resources.

HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR LIFE?

Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen wrote a thought-provoking book titled "How Will You Measure Your Life?" It's an important question everyone must answer. What metrics should we measure to make sure our life really matters? How should our time on earth add up?

I wonder how Jesus would answer that question.

I believe it would simply be obedient love.

He didn’t seem to worry about outcomes like we do. He didn’t measure what mattered to so many in his day. He just listened and loved until the day he died. He wasn’t concerned with success, metrics, outcomes, or the applause of the crowd. He seemed to be content living in the Father's love. Brennan Manning, the modern apostle of grace, seemed to understand this too. He wrote,

"All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If He wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is His concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that."

JESUS AT DISNEY WORLD

In my mid-thirties, my in-laws took our family to Disney World for Christmas. The highlight for me was the Carols service in EPCOT. It was almost surreal to be in Walt Disney’s magic world, hearing songs about Jesus’ birth. The lessons and carols service is shockingly orthodoxy yet the highlight was the reading of a poem by the Rev. James Allan Francis. Here in the midst of funnel cakes and light parades, the timeless power of grace rang true. I looked around in awe at all Walt Disney had built in just a few decades but was reminded of the power of the broken math of grace.

He was born in an obscure village,

a child of a peasant woman.

He grew up in another obscure village

where he worked in a carpenter shop

until he was thirty.

Then for three years

he was an itinerant preacher.

He never had a family.

Or owned a home.

He never set foot inside a big city.

He never traveled two hundred miles

from the place he was born.

He never wrote a book

or held an office.

He did none of the things

that usually accompany greatness.

While he was still a young man,

the tide of popular opinion

turned against him.

His friends deserted him.

He was turned over to his enemies.

He went through the mockery of a trial.

He was nailed to a cross

between two thieves.

While he was dying

his executioners gambled

for the only piece of property he had,

his coat.

When he was dead,

he was taken down

and laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone

and today he is still the central figure

for much of the human race.

All the armies that ever marched,

All the navies that ever sailed

And all the parliaments that ever sat

And all the kings that ever reigned

Put together

have not affected the life of man

Upon this earth

As powerfully as this

One Solitary Life.

It's true, so true.

Jesus + nothing = everything. Grace is terrible math.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

how to save thousands of dollars on marriage therapy

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church."
Ephesians 5

"We are here to love. Not much else matters."
Francis Chan

“If you do this one single practice, it will save you thousands of dollars on marriage counseling later on.”

That’s what Dr. Josh Straub said at a recent men’s event I attended. Josh has a PhD with a focus on attachment theory and is an amazing family therapist. So when he dropped that one-liner toward the end of his talk, I leaned in. He continued,

“Marriage is a complex relationship, and there are so many elements that we need to attend to, but there is one foundational practice all others are built on. If you do this one simple practice, it will save you thousands of dollars on marriage counseling.”

So what is the practice? I’ll get to that in a bit.

The reason this felt urgent to me was the history of challenges I have had in marriage. Marriage has not been happily ever after for us. Marriage has been hard. It’s been glorious and sanctifying and full of adventure, but it has not been easy. I got married young. To be honest, my wife and I would both say we didn’t know what we were getting into. Everyone says that, but it's more true for some folks than others. We dragged so much baggage into the early years of our marriage. Our family of origin issues included sexual abuse, suicide, bankruptcy, incarceration, violence, cross-cultural dynamics, estranged family members, and the worst thing of all, secrecy. There were so many things hiding in the dark, and we wrestled for years to build the trust and framework to be truly vulnerable. We have fought and wept and repented and crawled our way into the beautiful marriage we have today.

The greatest challenge we have is our independence. Both of us are pretty introverted, we both know what we want to do, and we are both driven by a vision of the kingdom. We have tried so many things to stay connected, including some absolutely hilarious ideas therapists have recommended over the years that have just become memes and folklore. So what Dr. Straub shared was so hopeful.

THE PRACTICE

Here it is.

Take a 15-minute window a day to share with your wife what’s happening in your inner world and to listen to what’s happening in hers. 15 minutes a day. That’s the practice. It doesn’t have to be therapy, just honesty. It doesn’t have to be major, just meaningful. It doesn’t have to be huge, just helpful. And just 15 minutes. After years of struggling to consistently connect, I felt hopeful.

And then, I tried it. ☺

It turns out, it was hard for me to access the stuff in my heart and a touch harder to process it in real-time. And harder for my wife to sit and pour out her heart to me. So, I created a little framework for that time that has made things both practical and insightful. I am sure there are all sorts of models and methods for this, but this one has worked for me.

DAILY GRACE.

At the end of the day, as a part of my wind-down ritual, I take a few moments to reflect on the following categories:

GRATITUDE. What was I thankful for today?

REALIZATIONS. What did I learn today about life, myself, God?

ACTIONS. What initiative did I take toward the things that are meaningful to me and my calling?

CHALLENGES. What came up that I had to deal with, confront, or overcome?

ENJOYMENT. Where was there joy, delight, and meaning today?

I reflect on this as a kind of prayer of examen, and then share it with my wife. I jot down a thought or two under each category and that’s it. It may not sound like much, but when my wife knows what I am grateful for, learning, working on, wrestling with, and where I am finding life, she has access to some of the deepest parts of who I am. Others may see what I do; she is learning who I am becoming. And I can't help but think Josh could be right. The compound effect of this could save me thousands of dollars on marriage counseling in the years ahead.

Maybe your marriage is great. Maybe you have it all sorted out, or maybe you have wrestled like me. But the key thing is to find what works for both of you. If you feel stuck, I hope this may get you started on repairing the intimacy and distance that so easily sneaks in.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STUFF ON TOP OF THE FOUNDATION?

You have probably heard about the Gottman Institute; they are famous for their research on predicting divorce amongst couples with a staggeringly high percentage rate. Some of their most interesting research is around time. How much time does a married couple need to spend together each week to have a healthy marriage? Their research states that 6 hours a week is the magic number to maintain a healthy marriage per week. Here is how that time is broken down:

• A 2-minute meaningful goodbye in the morning.  

• A 20-minute reunion at night processing the day and being present.

• A hug and a six-second kiss every day.

• 5 minutes of appreciation and affirmation every day.

• A 2-hour date a week.

• A 1-hour state of the union a week, zooming out and looking at the big picture of your life and relationships. 

6 hours a week. That is something I can build on. To me, that seems like both a little and a lot, but it’s helpful and hopeful to know there is something to move toward. Something research-backed and not driven by a fad. A framework to learn to love like Christ loved the church.

Tim Keller said, “Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon.”

I’m hoping and praying this makes the journey to the same horizon more filled with grace this week. I hope it saves you thousands on therapy too ☺

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

the need for elders

"Growing up and maturing is precisely a process of fermentation. It does not happen easily, without effort and without breakdown. But it happens almost despite us, because such is the effect of a conspiracy between God and nature to mellow the soul."

Ronald Rolheiser

"The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding."

Proverbs 4:7

We live in a youth-obsessed culture. It’s important to focus on the next generation; they are 100 percent of our future. But in all our zeal for a better world, breaking generational cycles, and leaving a life-giving legacy, we must not neglect one essential thing: the wisdom of Elders.

It's important to note that age does not make one an Elder. Age can make you older but not wiser. I have met many old and bitter fools. I have also met remarkable young people with wisdom beyond their years. Time and age can be incredibly formative if a person is thoughtful, reflective, courageous, and compassionate. Age can temper ungodly ambition, stabilize a man’s identity, and break his narcissistic tendencies. With grace and patience, an old man may emerge into a sage.

I need sages in my life. I need the wisdom of Elders. As a man, I often face challenges in my life and leadership for which I just don’t feel equipped. There is a tradition and perspective of wisdom and experience I need from the generation that has gone before me. I love the reformative zeal of the young, the passion for exploration and justice and life, but there are times I need proven leadership. I need timeless wisdom in momently confusion. There are times I need the elders.

The truth is, our world is often driven by those who have figured out algorithms but haven’t figured out life.

Our world is driven by the technician, not the sage.

Our world is driven by the marketer, not the theologian.

Our world needs Elders.

Andrew Jamieson has a chapter on the need for Elders in his writings on the midlife journey. He highlights the urgency for wisdom in times of crisis. When the stakes are high, the Elders must appear.

AVOIDING THE ANNIHILATION OF OUR FUTURES

The following is an extended quote highlighting the difference between the wisdom of Elders versus reactive and pragmatic aggression.

Jamieson notes,

In October 1962, humanity faced what the historian Arthur Schlesinger called "tthe most dangerous moment in human history." On the morning of October 16, the director of the CIA presented President Kennedy with irrefutable evidence that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba, ninety miles from the US mainland. By mid-morning Kennedy had convened a meeting with his military chiefs, by the end of which the President had all but decided upon an immediate air strike against Cuba followed by a full-scale invasion of the island. Kennedy then was scheduled to have lunch with his US Ambassador to the United Nations, the veteran American politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson. Kennedy greatly prized Stevenson’s experience and wisdom and had publicly stated that ‘the integrity and credibility of Adlai Stevenson constitutes one of our greatest national assets.’ 

Kennedy invited Stevenson into the Oval Office, explained his predicament and told him that he was about to activate the full military option advised by his generals. Stevenson was deeply concerned to hear about the Soviet actions, but was even more horrified to hear about the massive military response that Kennedy was about to unleash and insisted that there should be no air strike or invasion until every possible peaceful solution had been explored. 

He also advised that the motives behind the Soviet’s reckless strategy should be carefully examined before responding with an equally reckless military approach. Kennedy then discussed the veteran Stevenson’s warning with his brother Bobby and thankfully the US military action was postponed. 

For the next thirteen days two conflicting views polarized around Stevenson’s diplomatic, less bellicose approach and the aggressive, belligerent views of the military leadership led by the head of the army, Maxwell Taylor, and the head of the air force, General Curtis LeMay.

LeMay was a particularly unpleasant individual who regarded his greatest achievement as ‘Operation Meetinghouse’, an air raid which took place in March 1945 when 325 B-29 bombers incinerated sixteen square miles of Tokyo, killing 100,000 civilians. It was the deadliest, most violent four hours in human history. The power of LeMay’s invective now seemed to be propelling the argument towards a nuclear strike against Cuba with consideration given to a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union itself. Yet as the debate continued, the doves, led by Stevenson, slowly began to prevail over the hawks, led by LeMay. 

Finally, it was Stevenson’s advice that Kennedy followed and the President chose a naval blockade of Cuba rather than the military strategy of bombing or invasion. 

The President also implemented Stevenson’s proposal that the US should offer to exchange their missiles based in Turkey for the Cuban-based Soviet missiles. The Generals were, of course, violently opposed to this plan and regarded it as a sign of weakness, but this gesture of reconciliation became US government policy which greatly reduced superpower tensions. Once the naval blockade was imposed Stevenson was also significantly involved in the formulation of all communications that Kennedy sent Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev until the crisis was resolved. 

At this critical moment in history – the nearest we have come to species extinction – a kind of natural selection was at work. Subsequent historical analyses suggest that had Kennedy taken the bombing and invasion option, there was a high probability that catastrophic nuclear conflict would have followed. 

The species was saved, however, by the prudent counsel of a wise elder which produced a measured, more compromise-orientated approach: a policy based upon communication and understanding in all matters regarding nuclear weapons.

BUILDING A COUNCIL OF ELDERS

When a young man rejects the wisdom of the Elders, disaster ensues. There is a tragic scene in 2 Chronicles 10:8 where David's son Rehoboam does just that. "But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him." 

This cost him the kingdom and caused a divided kingdom.

You must seek out Elders in your life. You must find those who can speak from a place of peace, clarity, and depth. Those who act and not just react. Those who can see beyond the horizon of the immediate. Those who draw from a deep well that can quench your thirst in the desert of immaturity.

Pursue the wise in your community.

Pay a coach to help develop you.

Honor the generation who came before you and create spaces for them to share what they carry.

Honor the wise over the superficial.

Wisdom may end up being a new apologetic.

Wisdom may save your life.

Call for the Elders.

Thanks for reading,

Cheers.

Jon.

the power of a self-aware man

"All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart."

Proverbs 21:2

"At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things."

Albert Camus

The older I get, the less interest I have in what I do and the more interest I have in who I become. I want my doing to flow from my being. But my perception of who I am versus others’ experience of who I am can be far apart. There can be a delta between my intent and my impact. I have been seeking feedback from close friends lately on what it’s like to be on the other side of me to close that gap. This is not as easy as it sounds.

Asking for feedback on how people experience you is not for the faint of heart. To be honest, the feedback has been somewhat of a revelation. Some has brought tears of joy, some defensiveness, some sadness. The thing that has stood out the most is some of my blind spots. It’s amazing how things can go unnoticed until pointed out.

Dr. Tasha Eurich spent more than 10 years surveying people about their levels of self-awareness. She’s found that while 95% of study participants think they’re self-aware, only about 10% to 15% of them fully are.

How self-aware do you think you are?

In one particularly painful conversation, someone shared how they felt the need to guard their heart around me for fear of being easily dismissed.

In a joyful conversation, someone said they experienced me as a source of safety, a person they go to for comfort, understanding, and joy.

I did not expect this feedback from either of the people who gave it.

When I asked my sweet wife what it was like to be on the other side of me, she gave me the best answer of all, "It depends." She said. "Depends on what?" I asked. "So many things" was her reply, as she cheekily smiled and refused to say more.

Several weeks into my efforts to grow in self-awareness, I came across some work by Ryan Leak on the power of becoming more self-aware. He argues that a self-aware person does three essential things well.

1-They are aware of their strengths. 

They know what they bring to the table to bless, contribute, and serve. There is no false humility here but an honest and confident use of their gifts.

2-They are aware of their shortcomings.

There is a humility and acknowledgment of what they don’t bring to the table. An honest sense of limitation in areas without wallowing, covering, or hiding.

3-They are aware of their impact on other people.

This one is harder. This requires an openness and a desire to hear feedback. This requires non-defensive listening and a willingness to change. This requires empathy, gentleness, and care.

My lack of awareness of my impact on other people shows up the most for me during conflict. When pressured or angry or afraid, I can fail to consider how my actions impact others. I can always frame things in such a way that what I said and did was right based on what I felt at the time. Leak highlights the idea of "biomythography," an idea originally coined by American poet Audre Lorde. This is a literary term indicating "a style of composition that weaves myth, history, and biography in epic narrative." 

In some sense, if we don’t get feedback from others, all we will ever do is biomythography. We will narrate our dealings with others in such a way that they are part fiction, myth, and history, but we will always find a way to psychologically position ourselves in the right. To frame things in such a way that what we said and did was justifiable in the circumstances.

Jesus said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear." It’s hard to keep your ears open when your ego profits from keeping them closed. It's easier to close your ears and heart and move on with our increasingly busy lives. But hearing can lead to change. With humility and openness, new voices begin to appear. Voices that let us hear what we have missed. Voices that speak to us of others’ perceptions. Voices that silence the selfishness and let love have the final word.

Ryan Leak goes on to give a list of questions you can ask to begin to grow in self-awareness. Why not take a few of these this week and ask those whose opinion matters to you?

What is it like to be parented by me?

What is it like to get emails from me?

What is it like to get texts from me?

What is it like to be on the other side of my Instagram comments?

What is it like to be married to me?

What is it like to be related to me?

What is it like to be in meetings with me?

What is it like to work with me?

What is it like to work for me?

What is it like to be on the sidelines of my kid’s game with me?

What is it like to be coached by me?

What is it like to be on a team with me?

What is it like to travel with me?

What is it like to do holidays with me?

What is it like to be on a date with me?

What is it like to live next to me?

What is it like to be my friend?

What is it like when I correct you?

At the core of my heart, I want to become like Jesus. To be a fearless man of courage and love. But I am learning it rarely happens in the way that I want. Or in dynamics where I am in charge and control. It happens when I humble myself and open my heart in vulnerability to feedback from those around me.

This summer I was on holiday with a friend, and he said something to me that jarred me. Something that struck me for its humility and honesty.

"Jon, I invite you to speak into my life. I am giving you an open door to say anything to me. Any blind spots you see, any wisdom you have, any concerns you feel, I’m giving you permission to call them out."

I left that conversation almost shaken. Shaken that he would trust me with his inner life, and shaken by his desire to become more self-aware. I wonder what would happen if our world was shaken like that?

So I am asking for grace to become a more self-aware man.

Is this a quiet voice nudging you to ask for it too?

Here for the hard feedback, and the joyful stuff too.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

refusing to take the world by storm

The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.
N.T. Wright.

Death has a way of clarifying what really matters. So much of what we are supposed to value is simply discarded on the journey into the long night.

I have been thinking about this in recent days due to the deaths of several people whose lives have touched me deeply, none more than Tim Keller. The first conversation I ever had with Tim was on the phone when he was in a taxi between services going from one Redeemer location to another to preach. 

His words have resonated in my ears hundreds of times over the years. He said in his kind but direct way,

“If you are coming to New York, you have to know two things.

One, you will never be bigger than New York. You are not going to be able to come and build some great thing that is bigger than this city. This city will always be bigger than you. You will need gospel humility.

Two, you have to have a sense that you are bringing something unique to the kingdom ecosystem of New York. You have to feel that you have something to offer that doesn’t exist and is needed, otherwise join something already doing well or don’t come. It will be too hard without a clear sense of this. You will need gospel confidence.”

What profound advice. Humility and confidence, redeemed ambition. In some ways, our church has thrived in New York because these two things have been fixed in my mind.

And I needed to hear this. To be honest, like most young men, I thought we were going to take the city by storm. I thought we were going to move in, plant a church, shake the city, and build a movement. We were going to make a dent, make a splash, we were going to take the city by storm. 

I think he was trying to redirect these visions of grandeur into something better, a vision of service and love.

The truth is the early church didn’t take the world by storm. The early church took the world through suffering love. In all our lifting of cherished passages from the book of Acts and quotes from responses to plagues in the early centuries, there were a lot of ordinary days between the heroic ones. There were humble choices by ordinary people to love, weep, include, welcome, and worship in the dark. Between the big and the dramatic, there was the secret and the deep. 

I think it is so in the modern world too, and I have learned these lessons pastoring these 18 years in the middle of New York. You won’t ever take New York by storm. But you will take it through loving neighbors, secret prayer, concern for the poor, humble proclamation of the gospel, and vocational excellence with an eye on Christ.

In light of death, eternity, and the call to conformity to the life of Jesus Christ, we must abandon our attempts to take the world by storm. The truth is, most of the time Christians seek to do so, they damage those they seek to serve. We don’t want to abandon the world that God loves, but we don’t want to seize power by human means. You may gain control by force, but you can only win a heart through love. 

Following this idea, I recently came across this profound poem by Andrea Gibson entitled: In the chemo room, I wear mittens made of ice so I don’t lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down. 

It’s a brutal but beautiful poem of defiant joy and a woman seeing with clarity in the face of her death. (You can read it here.) 

These lines struck me deeply:

Why did I want to take the world by storm when I could have taken it by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers on the side of the road when I broke down?

In light of the wisdom of those who have looked death in the eye and saw what matters through an eternal frame, let's abandon trying to take the world by storm.

Let’s take it with faith.
Let’s take it with hope.
Let’s take it with love.

Let’s take it with humble service so that when it’s time for our long journey into the night, the road will be paved with gratitude and kindness for those we leave behind.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

the antidote for exhaustion part 2: wholehearted men

The glory of God is a man fully alive.
St Irenaeus

I have come that you may have life, life to the full.

Jesus

In my last email, I spoke of David Whyte’s conversation with a Benedictine Monk in a season of utter exhaustion. The monk surprised him with this answer. 

"The antidote for exhaustion is not necessarily rest. It's wholeheartedness."

In Whyte's conversation with the Monk, he went on, 

"The reason that you are exhausted is that much of what you are doing you have no affection for. You’re doing it because you have an abstract idea that this is what you should be doing in order to be liked. You are exhausted because your energies lay elsewhere. You have been ripening yourself, and you are ready to harvest yourself, and if you don’t, you will rot on the vine."

This is one of the most profound paragraphs I have read in a long time.

• Obligation without affection.

• Being miserable to be liked.

• Unable to access energy because it has been relocated to another area of life.

• Rotting on the vine and neglecting the harvest.

The key to being the man you want isn’t an idealistic sabbatical, working harder to get ahead, or doing more of what is making you miserable simply because you should. 

The key is aligning yourself with the activity of God in your life. 

So many men today set a course for their life in their twenties and then it becomes a rut. Things calcify in such a way that change becomes impossible. But to walk in the Spirit as followers of Jesus means that we listen to His leading wherever it takes us. Jesus models this so well. Jesus lived a wholehearted life.

Jesus refused to fit into the social conventions of his day for the sake of being liked.
Jesus would leave a village in the middle of a revival when the Father told him to move on.
Jesus would stop in the middle of a crowd to tend to an individual others had missed.
Jesus challenged the disciples and made space for children.
Jesus went to the cross and rebuked Peter for trying to hold him back.

Jesus followed where the Father's energies led him.
You must too.

One of the hardest challenges I have faced navigating the course of my life is fitting into categories that make others happy.

I love being a Pastor and serving an amazing local church, but I have a heart for the kingdom that extends beyond the boundaries of New York.

I love the life of the mind, theology, philosophy, and sociology, but I also love the arts, music, and poetry.

I love holy ambition and drive, but I chase wonder and whimsy hard.

And for most of my life, this pursuit of wholeheartedness has made me at odds with the conventional world. The price of wholeheartedness is being misunderstood. But it is a price worth paying. 

Being wholehearted will require you to have courage. 

It requires the willingness to say yes to things you have said no to for a very long time.
It requires you to say no to things you have been saying yes to for a very long time.
It requires ruthless honesty about your need to please people and be liked.
It requires being honest about changes that need to happen. Friends you need to let go of, endings that are overdue, acknowledging your opinions and convictions have changed.

Why not take a moment this week to ask God to show you how to pursue wholeheartedness? Maybe the following questions are a few things to reflect on.

What have you lost affection for? 

What is robbing you of joy?

What dream has been burning in your heart that has been smothered by obligation but needs to breathe?

What has God ripened in you through your abiding in him?

Where has God been working in private that needs more public expression?

What do you need to harvest from this season before it rots on the vine? 

Behind the answer to these questions is the rest of your heart, the rest you have been looking for that has gotten lost along the way. 

Learning about wholeheartedness, David Whyte wrote,

"Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences." 

Here’s to the terrifying, heart-stirring, soul-wakening consequences of living from the whole of our hearts.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

these are the days you will long to have back

 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalms 90:12

"Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing."

Miles Davis

I was reminded of a statistic recently about parenting that shook me to the core.

Between 93 and 95 percent of all the time you will spend in person with your children will happen before they turn 18. 

The final 5-7 percent of in-person time will be stretched out over the next 50 years. I don’t think the typical parent is consciously parenting with that reality in mind.

So let that sink in.

The normal stuff of life - taking kids to school, homework, watching them text their friends, driving them to sports - this is the actual time you are given to shape their lives. There is not some "magical" strategic season; there is just now. It’s in the daily, frustrating, exhausting, distracted, painful, and overwhelming everyday moments of life that you are given to do life with your kids.

Both of my children have left the house now. At 22 and 20, they are well on their way to becoming godly adults who fill my heart with pride and joy. But the halls are quiet now, and to be honest, I miss them. I miss laughter coming from behind the door of my son's room. I miss walking my daughter home from Times Square because it got a little shady between 8th and 9th Avenues late at night. I miss family sabbath, eating BBQ around the city with my son, and heading to Los Tacos no 1. and Levain Bakery with my daughter. 

I worked hard to be both intentional and strategic as a Dad, but I would do almost anything to go back in time and have another 2 weeks of ordinary, everyday, boring, exhausting time with my kids. 

Sometimes when a Dad gets done reading The Intentional Father, they tell me it all sounds a bit too much. A bit unnecessary. A bit dramatic. For most of them, their kids are at home and they mistakenly think they have forever. But I know something they don’t: their children will soon be gone and these are the days they will long to have again. I also talk to dads with tears in their eyes whose kids are gone. These dads would urge those dads that it’s not too much, not too dramatic, and more than necessary.  I want to tell these casual dads that these are the days they will long to have again.   

This is how we often think about spending time with our kids. But this is an illusion.

Sometimes people debate about quality time vs quantity time. In some sense, they are both valuable. But a more helpful way to look at time is the brevity of time. When it comes to being a Dad:

You can waste time, and regret it for the rest of your life.
You can use your time, doing what is needed, without awareness or wonder.
You can invest your time, sowing seeds of love and connection that will bare fruit over the course of your life.
You can redeem your time, buying back the seconds and days that seem like ordinary moments to be present, to love, to instruct, to comfort, to celebrate, to laugh, and to cry.

DADS! Be present. Fight distraction. Be patient. Savor everything. Invest deeply. And redeem proactively, because these ARE the days you will long to have again. 

Hoping this is a rich week of awareness and connecting with those you love.

Grace and peace.

Jon.

P.S. Jefferson Bethke and I did a podcast together called The Intentional Family. In it, we unpack the best stuff we have learned about loving our kids and leaving a godly legacy in their lives. It's super practical, and believe it or not, the first time we ever met in person.

sacred effort

Fellas,

This is a strange ask for me as I’ve never quite done something like this (you'll find the regular email at bottom of this email). But I’ve had enough conversations with you all I wanted to bring it to this community. 

As you know Jefferson Bethke and I have been focusing on serving men through writing, retreats, conferences, and our forthcoming book. 

And to be honest, the depth of response has been humbling and overwhelming. We are constantly amazed at the passion and hunger to see God work in the hearts of men around the world. 

We have been trying to discern what the next steps are for us, and how we can more strategically formalize the momentum and calling into something that serves men with more intentionality and skill.

So we are excited to announce we are launching a non-profit ministry under which a ton of these initiatives will be housed.

We want to be able to offer events and resources for free, for the men who need them most. We want to serve Gen Z, men in under resourced communities, and church communities. We want to get a property that becomes a hub for men to visit and find formation.

And that’s where we are looking for a few specific guys to be stakeholders and early stage donors for this ministry. 

To do this we are hosting a retreat in PA/NY in May, for about 20 men who want to be early advisors, and founding large donors for the ministry. We still have a couple spots open.

I thought I would reach out and see if helping fund a new mens ministry stirs any of your hearts. To be clear, this is a resource raising event to push back the kingdom of darkness for years to come--not just hang time :) but thought I would put it out there. 

The expenses for the retreat are covered (except airfare), and the food alone will be life changing—but we’ll mainly be giving you a 36 hour time to replenish your soul while casting vision on what we sense God has in store. 

And if this isn’t the right spot for you, we would covet your prayers and support as we move ahead. 

We will be hosting other events for pastors and leaders on how we see the nonprofit serving them in the future as we get farther down the road.

You can reach out to Jeff at jeff@formingmen.com for more info. Maybe let him know a little bit about you as well on the email.

Grateful for you all,

Now on to this week’s email.

______________________

On Saturday, March 4, 1865, President Lincoln stood up in front of the nation to give his second inaugural address. Lincoln was a man deeply marked by the passage of time. A darkness seemed to hang over him and his large frame was bent heavy with grief. The nation was devastated by the civil war, and the casualties were almost inconceivable for the time.  In a few brief paragraphs, Lincoln shared his heart, shared his sorrow, and called the nation forward.

Lincoln was unsure of how this speech was received in the midst of such division and pain. 

In seeing Frederick Douglass, he asked him what he thought. 

“Mr. Lincoln,” Douglass replied, “that was a sacred effort.”

A sacred effort.

Is there really anything more that a man can give than that?

We live today in a world marked be mediocrity.

Halfhearted men giving a percentage of their potential to those around them. 

You can see this everywhere.

Politicians marked by narcissism and corruption, serving themselves. Selfish effort.

Products being sloppily built without thought of who will use them. Halfhearted effort.

Indifferent customer service causing frustration and disappointment. Halfhearted effort.

Kids at the park while their dads stare at their screens. Halfhearted effort.

In the book of Malachi God rebukes the priest and the people for halfhearted effort. 

Malachi writes. 

“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty.

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name.

“But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’

“By offering defiled food on my altar.

“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’

“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

God was grieved by the contempt shown to his name for the leaders bringing half hearted offerings. They gave God the scraps of their wealth, the leftovers of their love and somehow thought he wouldn’t mind.

It’s not hard for a man to stand out in a world of mediocrity. 

Just do things with sacred effort.

Treat your kids like it will be the last time you see them. One day it will be true.

Treat your wife like you have an enemy seeking to destroy your marriage. You do.

Do your work with excellence like it’s for Jesus himself. It is. 

Worship like you are preparing for eternal life. You are. 

We can’t change everything, fix everything, or save everyone, but we can do what God puts in front of us with sacred effort. And in a mediocre world, that is enough.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon. 

what to do with your wounds

"The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others."

Henri Nouwen

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

The progress in our world today has come with unintended consequences. Kingdoms are often built with blood. Our ambition to build empires has come at a cost. Pastors use volunteers to build churches, influencers use followers to build platforms, brands use customers to build fortunes. So many of the calls for justice today are simply calls to acknowledge and repair the damage done by aggressive men who built their legacy without thought of the human cost.

I have built with ungodly ambition for which I carry deep regret, and I have been wounded by others’ ambition with deep pain. There has to be a better way to live our calling without the damage that follows so many today. 

In fact, it’s amazing how much Gen Z doesn’t seem interested in empire-building. The focus is more human, more healing. They want to tend to the wounds of the damage done by the ambition of previous generations. They tend to care about structural justice, not success. Inclusion, not impact.

Jesus didn’t fit into the empire-building categories of his day either. So much of his ministry was about healing and restoration. He came to free those caught in the power games of his world. Those ground out as cogs in the fights of kings and emperors, teachers, and tetrarchs.

At the opening of his ministry, Jesus frames his vision of his kingdom from the mission of Isaiah 61. Take a moment and read this slowly. Try and hear it with fresh ears. 

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Jesus is building another kind of kingdom.

With another kind of mission.

With a different kind of vision.

Jesus is building a kingdom of love for the wounded of this world.

So many men have been wounded by the wars of the modern world. Political wars, relational wars, vocational wars, family wars. So many men walk around with gaping wounds in their hearts. Father wounds, wounds of rejection, wounds of shame, wounds of failure. So many men walk around in desperate need of the ministry of Jesus. I meet so many wounded men who don’t know what to do with their pain. They don’t want to become bitter but they don’t know how to move forward. They seem stuck between ambition and ambivalence. Looking for a way of impact without injury, destiny without damage.

There is good news for those feeling like they are stuck. Those with wounded hearts.  Those in bondage. The good news of Jesus' mission is that the places of our brokenness may become the places of redemption. The very places of our hurt are the places we can offer hope. The truth is, most men don’t want you to help them be successful; they want you to help them become whole. They aren’t looking to hear about your success; they want you to join them in their suffering and lead them forward.

These verses in Isaiah paint an amazing vision of restoration, renewal, and hope:

They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated;

they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God.

What a vision! Restoration of the devastated places.

Renewing cities from generational despair.

Planted by God, serving as ministers and priests.

But who is going to do this work of restoration?

Who is the "they" in this passage?

Who is rebuilding and restoring and ministering for God?

It's not the powerful, the strong, or the mightily. No.

It’s those who have been restored by the touch of God.

Those whose broken hearts will build with love.

Those set free from darkness will guide others to the light.

Those who mourned will share their comfort.

Those saved from despair will share their praise.

Those clothed with splendor will remove others’ ashes.

Those with wounds that have been healed will welcome the weary into the kingdom of God. The healers become the helpers, the wounded the workers, the broken the builders. The rebuilding will come from those who have been made whole by the love of Jesus. The work of the Messiah is the work of wounded healers.

And these are the men that the world is aching for today.

Not men building out of narcissism or ego. Not men building with something to prove. Not men killing it and crushing it at whatever cost.

No.

God will use the weak, the weary, and the wounded who have found help and hope and grace. They will restore because they have been restored. They move toward the brokenhearted because they have been healed of their broken-heartedness.

Don’t be ashamed of your wounds. Don’t hide from your failures out of embarrassment. Bring them to Jesus. As Robert Bly reminds us:

"Where a man’s wound is, that is where his genius will be. Wherever the wound appears in our psyches, whether from alcoholic father, shaming mother, … whether it stems from isolation, disability, or disease, that is precisely the place for which we will give our major gift to the community."

This is the kind of genius we need today. Not technological genius, financial genius, or sporting genius. We need the genius of healing. Where those who know what pain and heartache and failure feels like lead those who need mercy into a kingdom of grace.

The day of the celebrity pastor is coming to a close.

The day of the alpha leader is coming to an end.

The day of platforms and pride is fading out.

The day of the wounded healer is upon us.

Your wounds are not just your genius; they are your gateway to your gift.

Henri Nouwen wrote:

Like Jesus, he who proclaims liberation is called not only to care for his own wounds and the wounds of others, but also to make his wounds into a major source of his healing power.

What should you do with your wounds? Receive healing and give healing.

There is a generation of men waiting for your ministry there.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

two words that change everything

 The road to revival is often paved with tears and brokenness.

Leonard Ravenhill

Saint Augustine wasn’t always a saint. He was an ambitious, arrogant, promiscuous young man with a vision of making a name for himself in the elite circles of Rome. He fathered a child out of wedlock and was controlled by pride and lust. He is famous for saying, "Give me chastity and temperance—but not yet!"

His mother, Monica, was a godly woman whose heart was broken by his prodigal ways. She had raised him in the faith, sought to instruct him in the way of Jesus, and urged him to turn toward the light. Nothing seemed to work. She began to seek the Lord for her son with holy desperation. Monica’s prayers began to run out of words. Her prayers turned to tears.

She would go to the church and cry out for his salvation, but nothing seemed to change. She would call upon the lord with no tangible effect. Her desperation increased and drove her to seek council from Bishop Ambrose as to what to do. He struggled with how to advise her on her agony of grief for Augustine’s soul. 

"At last, he grew impatient and said, ‘Leave me and go in peace. It cannot be that the son of these tears should be lost’" (Confessions 3.12)."

This response is one that has forged hope in parents of prodigals throughout history. Children of tears will come home. 

"The prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective," wrote James. But it can also be said, "the tears of a parent are powerful and effective for bringing prodigals home." We must recover our ability to weep for this generation.

We have tried everything to help raise Gen Z. Meds, counseling, therapy, listening, affirmation, and care. But as a whole, things seem to be getting worse. 

Leonard Ravenhill tells a story from William Booth about securing breakthrough in one of his missions where there was steep resistance. Ravenhill writes:

"In my twenties, during a period of pastoring, I loved to go past the Salvation Army building, which was the largest one outside of London. There’s a huge block of stone at the front. Chiseled in one stone it says, "William Booth of the Salvation Army opened this corps," and then it gives the date of 1910. In a second stone it says, "Kate and Mary Jackson, officers in this corp."

It was in this poor city, where they spin and weave cotton into cloth and the whole town was on the poverty level, that Kate and Mary Jackson labored for a couple of years and nothing happened. Those girls worked diligently and went to bed exhausted at night. So they wrote William Booth: "Would you kindly move us to another station? We’re so tired and disheartened. We’ve tried everything that we’ve been taught to do. Please move us to another location."

Booth sent a telegram back with two words: 

"Try tears."

They did and they saw real revival come. Those girls went to travailing prayer, not just prayer, but travailing prayer, prayer with anguish in it.

For Gen Z, nothing we have tried has worked. Maybe it’s time to try tears.

Ask for tears for your children growing up in a godless world.
Ask for tears for a generation plagued with anxiety.
Ask for tears for the staggering rates of depression and suicide.
Ask for tears for a bride whose garments are defined by spots and blemishes.
Ask for tears for the slow decay stealing our light and joy. 

Last week, I drove down to the Asbury Outpouring in Kentucky. It was one of the most extraordinary things I have witnessed. The tangible presence of God, city-straining crowds, and students turning their hearts to Jesus. Many want the fruit of the revival, but don’t understand the price of revival. Asbury was paved with tears.

There has been a committed group of leaders faithful praying, weeping, and contending for a move of God at Asbury over the years. Behind the scenes of students cheering were leaders contending. Behind the hours of worship were leaders weeping. Long before the lines of crowds, there were heartfelt groans. 

Leonard Ravenhill says, "The road to revival is often paved with tears and brokenness."

If you need God to move in your family, try tears. If you have kids struggling to walk with Jesus, try tears. If your heart feels cold and your faith weak, ask for his mercy and ask for tears.

We have tried the best of human ingenuity, technology, psychology, and science, but nothing has changed our hearts. 

It's time we try tears.

Weep on brothers.

There is a cloud the size of a man's fist on the horizon.

Cheers.

Jon

P.S. Here is a link to a brief article on the kind of prayer that fueled the Asbury Outpouring. It’s written by David Thomas, a quiet, humble God-fearing man stewarding things behind the scenes. His talk at Asbury was the seeds for this email. 

what to do with your ambition

"To lend each other a hand when we’re falling, 
Perhaps that’s the only work that matters in the end."

Frederick Buechner

It’s hard for a man to know what to do with his ambition these days. 
The channels for healthy expression seem to be broken. 

Some argue we should focus on impact. This is a kind of utility request. We should seek to make the greatest impact possible on the greatest number of people. But often, when you look behind the scenes, there is a trail of wounded hearts and buried bodies at the price of success. In our desire to do great things, we can do great damage.

Some argue that we should focus on influence. That we should seek to gain as wide an audience as possible. We should build a platform to distribute our perspectives and positions. We should seek to mold and shape the views of others with the force of our lives. But change without direction is wasted energy. Change for change’s sake can lead to nausea on the journey. 

Others suggest we should focus on none of these things. Ambition is toxic they say. It’s the driving factor in so much of the brokenness and pain in the world. History is the battlefield of ambition, and success is written with the blood of failure.

What is a man to do with his ambition? 

This past weekend, we hosted our first-ever Forming Men conference in Tampa. Over 500 men packed into a muggy sanctuary to call on the Lord for freedom and formation. There were tears, prayers, laughter, and embrace. There was worship and the healing of wounds. 

People were gracious with their feedback, but one theme seemed to emerge in the encouragement. Something surprising:

"This was really helpful"

Helpful.

This is not a word visionaries use. "I want to be helpful" probably won’t get you hired for your dream job. But it's something men seem to need right now. We need help.

At the end of his magisterial book, Life After God, Douglas Coupland wrote, "My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to helpme be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."

Needing help is not weak; it's human.

We need help with our shame.
We need help with our lust.
We need help with our anxiety.
We need help with our apathy.
We need help with our cynicism.
We need help with our despair. 

Jesus knew we need help. In fact, in John 14, 15, and 16, he named the Holy Spirit himself as the Helper.

Helping is divine.

This is where a man can channel his ambition. Into being helpful, coming alongside others who are struggling, and being present and encouraging. To give resources where there is lack, stability where chaos, and love where fear. 

Channel your ambition into being a helpful man. 
Don’t look up and envy. 
Don’t look around and compare.
Don’t look within and critique.
Look down and help.

As Buechner wrote, "To lend each other a hand when we’re falling, Perhaps that’s the only work that matters in the end."

Get a vision of becoming a helpful man. 

Help with your kids’ homework.
Help with the dishes.
Help with the schedule.
Help with the youth group.
Help with the cleaning.
Help with problems in front of you.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I don’t stop to help this man, what will happen to him.'"

Get help. Give help. This is what you should do with your ambition. The world is waiting for a movement of helpful men. Let it start with you. 

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

a fuse burning toward dynamite

 In God in Search of Man, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote,

The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use.

No one will doubt that the quality of life in the modern world is of a higher standard than at any other time in history; yet, we are more riddled with anxiety, depression, narcissism, and fear than any generation in history. In all of our knowledge and utility, we have lost our hunger for wonder. Our desire for progress has hindered our capacity for glory. We have flattened the world, taken the telescope apart, forgotten how to reassemble it, and can no longer lift our eyes to the stars.

We need to reclaim wonder. We need to create space to encounter glory, but how can we do this? Fr Albert Haase records meeting a Native American Leader name Charlie, who shared with him a 4-step process for becoming aware of the glory of God that is all around us.

1-AWARENESS.

The first question God asks Adam and Eve after they have sinned in Genesis 3:9 is, "Where are you?" This is a question we all need to ask ourselves. We are often so distracted and pulled into the future or the past, that we are perpetually missing the moment. We must still our hearts and be where we actually are. Sometimes it helps to be concrete and specific.

"I am in my kitchen in New York sitting at a small table writing on a laptop. It is early morning. I am 46 years old. It's winter; the heater is on; my wife is here but my children are gone. This is my actual life."

Framing the experience lets you pay attention to what is happening in it. Much like art in a frame, framing moments lets you pay attention to the context and the details. Jim Elliot wrote, "Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."

2-ATTENDING.

What is actually happening around me? Charlie called this "feasting on the banquet of the present moment." What can you see, taste, touch, smell? How can you take it in and appreciate it? This can be a real discipline. We get so familiar with those around us that we can miss the changes happening before our eyes. With an 8-second attention span, our minds often race and miss what is in front of us. But if we are able to be present, something remarkable happens. We begin to observe the glory that is all around us. We see that God is in this place, but we didn’t know it.

Steinbeck wrote about how this kind of glory can emerge in a man's heart if he is paying attention. In East of Eden he wrote,

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then - the glory - so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. 

This is not comprehension. This is not utility. This is reverence. God will light the fuse that burns toward dynamite. Let’s not put it out with distraction and hurry.

3-ASSESSMENT. 

What does this teach me about God? It's remarkable how often we seek to escape our lives into ecstatic experiences when the voice of God is found most often in our daily experiences. The goal of faith is not to escape the mundane, but to encounter God in it.

Where has he been good to me? How is his mercy revealed at this time? How is his providence at work? How has he been shaping my heart? Who is he forming me into in this season?

4-ADORATION. 

What can I praise God for? How is this experience a launching pad for gratitude? How can I break an entitled spirit by not forgetting the Lord and all his benefits? Frank Laubach wrote, "The most important discovery of my whole life is that one can take a little rough cabin and transform it into a palace just by flooding it with thoughts of God."

Flooding our lives with thoughts of God. Thoughts of gratitude, thoughts of grace, thoughts of worship. That is what transforms the mundane into glory.

Steinbeck goes on to say,

And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. 

Measuring life by glory. Measuring importance by encounter. Refusing the metrics of accomplishment, fame, recognition, or wealth.

Why don’t you take a moment even now and walk through these 4 steps?

God may be lighting the fuse toward dynamite, even while you read.

Cheers.

Jon.

P.S. If you want to read further on how to resist distraction and learn to be present, I have a whole chapter on this in The Burden is Light.

refusing the second childhood

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men.

John Steinbeck

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we hear in our world today is that we need to calm down. I’m sure people have said this to you. People certainly say this to me. I tend to run pretty hard, but I also rest hard. I prioritize 7 hours of sleep a night, practice the sabbath, drink green juice, nap like a dog, and have deep rhythms of renewal, but that doesn’t seem to alleviate the concern. I have no desire to become a statistic, but I have even less desire to squander this season. Passion, once seen as a gift, seems to have become a threat.

I know the last few years have been hard for us all, and burnout is at an all-time high, but I think amongst the legitimate struggles and concerns, something else has snuck in. A kind of selfish preservation. An exchange of sacrificial love for acceptable ease. I am concerned that we are in danger of trading burning out for not burning at all. We are swapping sustainability for mediocrity. I don’t believe in just "sucking it up" and "grinding it out" for its own sake, but I am worried that the hearts of many men have stopped pressing into the promises God has for them. To be clear, If you are overwhelmed with anxiety or struggling with fatigue, by all means, tend to it; that is the godly and wise thing to do. But it’s not the legitimate things I am worried about; it’s the temptation to shrink back because of society’s lowered expectations.

When he was in his sixties, John Steinbeck set out for a road trip around America to see what had become of the country he loved. He wasn’t seeking to recapture his youth or revisit the glory days; he simply wanted to push into what was stirring in his heart. A desire to find his place in a changing nation and rekindle the fading sense of adventure that grows dull in the hearts of men his age. And then the concerns began to roll in. Many thought the trip was too much, unnecessary, and a threat to his life. Why couldn’t he settle down with some smaller hobbies and a few little luxuries? He had earned, even deserved, to relax. He had nothing left to prove. His reply to these concerns was profound. In Travels with Charley, the book documenting the trip, he writes:

It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany. It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, "Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were." And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it’s such a sweet trap. Who doesn’t like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. 

Fellas, do not retire from manhood. Do not fall back into a second childhood.

I am not for foolhardy bravado, but the sweet trap must be resisted.  Hebrews 11 is called the hall of faith, not the hall of sustainability. We must press into the call of God on our lives. God has more for you than what is offered in the programs of the typical western church. His heart is for you to live from your heart. He wants you to step into the unknown, to the place of risk and faith. That can be as small as joining a new community of men and as large as taking on a cause in your city. You can’t let everyone’s concern for you smother God's call to you. Listen to his voice. It will be the one that calls you out of comfort, calls you to the cross, and calls you to find life by losing yours.

Steinbeck goes on:

And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby.

What sort of men is our world inheriting today? How much fierceness have we surrendered for yardage? I am not trying to rage like a shadow-driven alpha male, (last week I wrote about tears,) but I think we need to begin to prioritize the voice of calling, not just the voice of concern. We need to asses whether or not the gifts of God within us are in flame or neglect.

Are there things you long for but never get to out of fear of being too intense?

Are you holding back passions for fear of being misunderstood?

Are you routing vision and drive through trivial things because they are socially acceptable?

Why not take a moment this week to get in touch with the deep desires of your heart? To see if you have buried any talents in the ground out of fear or concern. If so, go dig them up. Your community needs your story, gifts, wounds, passions, and heart to live. Your kids do. Your wife does. Let’s refuse the second childhood together.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

move toward the tears

Live to the point of tears. 

Albert Camus

I recently did an Instagram survey for a book I’m working on with Jefferson Bethke. The question was along the lines of, "what are the biggest issues men struggle with in the world today." I got several hundred replies to the survey from both women and men.

The answers fell into the categories you would assume: porn, identity, loneliness, immaturity. But one section of answers stood out to me in a really distinct way.

Emotional numbness.

Men noted a sense of malaise and inability to feel.

Women noted the deadness of men’s hearts.

I spoke with a man recently who said he couldn’t remember the last time he had cried.

Albert Camus exhorted us to "live to the point of tears."

If you want your heart back, you have to get your tears back.

Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkley, points out that there are really 3 kinds of tears. He notes:

"The first is the near-continuous watering of the surface of the eye produced by the lacrimal gland just above and behind the cornea. This kind of tearing smooths out the rough surface of the cornea so that you can see the world more clearly. 

A second kind of tear arises in response to physical events—chopping onions, thick smoke, a gnat flying into your eye, a poke to the eye when roughhousing with kids. It is produced by the same anatomy as the first kind of tear but is a response to a physical event.

The third kind of tears are tears of emotion, when the lacrimal gland is activated by a region of your nervous system that includes the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve wanders from the top of your spinal cord through your facial and vocal muscles and then through your lungs, heart, and intestinal wall, communicating with the flora and fauna of your gut. It slows your heart rate, calms the body, and through enabling eye contact and vocalization can bring about a sense of connection and belonging."

Functional tears, utility tears, and emotional tears. Some theological traditions call these tears sacred tears.

I started to ponder the things that have shaken my heart from its sleeping self. So I did an audit of sacred tears from recent days:

• Letters from my Compassion sponsor kids thanking me for my attention and support

• Dropping my daughter at college

• Talking with my wife while dealing with trauma from her past

• My son heading to Nepal to lead a missions team

• This poem

• The movie "Life is Beautiful"

• The movie "Till"

• 11 students getting baptized at our church

• The disappointment of being written out of the story of a close friend

• My parents aging and living a 24-hour flight away

• Listening to this song

• The death of the dream of living in an intentional community to model the way of Jesus because it just kind of fell apart in our midst

• Burying our dog after she died in my arms

• Forgiving leadership betrayal while receiving communion

I’ve made it my goal in 2023 to do more of the things that bring me to tears.

To risk pain and wonder by moving beyond the trivial boundaries policed by our culture.

Life can grind a man's heart out. It can weaken and callous and wound and numb. We can just go through the motions so often that slowly our hearts shrivel, atrophy, survive. But we can also choose to position our hearts at the places they come alive. The places of beauty and brokenness, sorrow and joy. 

That’s why Paul exhorts us in Romans 12:15 to "rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." We have to choose to enter into the places where tears are the only appropriate response.

Men, you have to move toward the tears.

Jesus did. He wept when his friend Lazarus died, even though he knew he would raise him from the dead. He was moved with compassion over the leaderless masses, and he wept over the city of Jerusalem and its impending doom.

"Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the bible. It may be the most profound. Here is a God with sacred tears on his cheeks. Being a disciple includes asking Jesus to teach us the way of tears. Push back on the trivial distractions that rob you of your capacity to love.

Make a list of what has brought you to tears in recent days. Move toward that.

Move toward that which is broken. Move toward the beauty still found in this mutilated world.

Move toward the tears. You will find Jesus there.

Cheers

Jon.

how to avoid frustration and disappointment in 2023

A naive man is a fool.

Chekhov

Evil people rely on the acquiescence of naive good people to allow them to continue with their evil.

Stuart Aken

I was having a conversation with my daughter a while back when she pointed out something to me. "Dad, you never seem to freak out when major stuff happens in your life. You are pretty calm. How did you learn to handle stress like that?"

It got me thinking along several lines, ones that tended toward sophistication and psychology. I wanted to say it’s all the research I’ve done on system theory and differentiation. I wanted to say it was because the Holy Spirit has produced the fruit of patience in me. I wanted to say it was because I am mellowing into middle age. But the truth is, it’s because of a simple, practical chart a mentor drew out for me on a single page.

One of the major ways men experience disappointment and pain is through unmet expectations. We naively take people at their word, believe the sales pitch, hope anything is possible, and rarely anticipate resistance. This is where most of the pain comes in. We don’t allocate margin to deal with the realities of life.

There is a sin tax for living on planet earth. That means things will take longer, cost more, require great effort, and burn more energy.

When I was a younger man, I was repeatedly frustrated because I believed the promises made to me, the timelines quoted, and the costs presented. I would think everything was going to be ok because people told me it would. I would often find myself paying more than quoted, being embarrassed because things took longer than I thought, and angry because people didn’t follow through. I felt like I was often taken advantage of and had some shame when I had to explain things to my wife. 

This cycle went on year after year, even with Christians I was in community with.

Then on a simple page, a mentor changed my paradigm.

The basic idea is this: Things will cost 10 times as much, and take 10 times longer than you think. Put simply, always allocate a chunk of margin to avoid being frustrated.

Here is a chart of how we think things will go:

This is how things normally go:

Naive men move through the world often frustrated at how much work life takes. But anticipating that things will cost more, take longer, and come with some resistance has removed so much stress from my life.

When my wife tells me the vacation will cost 2k, I allocate 4, and I don’t yell and scream when things come up or there are hidden fees.
When someone gives you a timeline for a car repair or a new roof, add another week or two, (or longer - my roof repair took 3 months)
When your kids tell you that something at school will cost 400 dollars, allocate 1000.
When you have a project due at work, allocate twice as much time as you think you need.

In management, things like this are thought of as contingencies.
In our personal lives, things like this are called margin.
Biblically, this is called wisdom.

I know this seems so elementary, but I am amazed at the number of young men who keep paying what Keith Cunningham in The Road Less Stupid calls "the dumb tax." Men carry lots of stress, and it comes out in the moments when margin is maxed out. Changing your framework to create space for the unexpected can help you keep your mouth shut and be better prepared.

It is so important to teach our kids the 10x rule.

Teenagers today are often at the mercy of stronger and more experienced people, who can manipulate and take advantage of them in a thousand different ways. Most of this is because they aren’t taught to anticipate the true cost of things. Proverbs 14:15 says, "The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps." Helping our kids give thought to the true cost will save them a ton of disappointment in the days to come. 

Why not pause this week before making a commitment, or accepting a deal? Mentally change the equation with 10x thinking, and see if something shifts. We need men who can move through life without naïve disappointment at how things turn out. We are in a war, and part of it is against paying the dumb tax.

Hoping for a less frustrating week for you.

Cheers.

Jon.

the 4 voices you need in your life this year

I recently spent a few hours with coach/therapist/leadership expert Jim McNeish. (You can check him out here.) I deeply respect him and his work has profoundly impacted how I move through the world. Our conversation roamed widely over the hours, but there was a part of that conversation I keep coming back to. A section I desperately need this year. A section that pointed out a deficit in my life. It was around having the right voices speaking into your life.

I have always tried to surround myself with a balance of voices. As a pastor and leader, I don’t want to be surrounded by "yes men" who simply tell me what I want to hear. I don’t want to be surrounded by critics either, people who think their job is to give me a play-by-play of my leadership struggles. I want a council of wisdom to help me live with integrity of heart and skillful hands. Yet this is easier said than done. 

Many men may serve in areas where the input of others is required to make their lives work. Coworkers, bosses, Pastors, and peers all share truth. But few men have the right voices speaking into their hearts. Few men are surrounded by a balanced community of brothers who will look them in the eye with love and tell them what they need to hear.

In his book on Masculinity, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, Robert Moore introduced the idea of the 4 masculine archetypes: the king, the warrior, the magician, the lover. He writes from a Jungian and historical perspective, but one that has endured for a reason. Archetypes are not stereotypes. There is something that rings true that transcends any given cultural moment. 

In my conversation with Jim, he suggested creating space to let these archetypal voices speak into my life. But then he did something helpful. "I know you understand and discern Jungian thinking," he said, "but to make it more biblical, let’s use some biblical archetypes from the book of Revelation: The Lion, the Eagle, the Ox, the Man." Something in my mind clicked as he shared this.

The Lion - the authority figure. The one who gives permission and constraint.
The Eagle - the prophetic, spiritual figure. The one who gives new perspective and vision.
The Ox - the laborer, the pragmatist. The one who challenges us to strive and to get real.  
The Human - the friend, the encourager. The one who accepts us as we are and who draws us into rest and being present.

He told me about an exercise he does, where someone sits in the middle of a circle, and then others take on each of the 4 voices. You share your heart and then each person speaks from their assigned perspective. One gives the permission you need to hear; one gives the inspiration you need, one the help you need, and one the encouragement you need. One man in the middle of a circle with voices speaking into his life. 

Now, let’s pause for a minute. I know this can sound a bit hokey. This can sound a bit like fight club wannabe or Gen X therapy. But put the cynic aside, and you are dealing with a framework of a transformative experience. Here are a couple of examples. 

ON LOSING WEIGHT

LION/AUTHORITY. I’m going to be honest with you - you are fat. Not chubby, or a bit heavy. You are fat. No woman wants to have sex with a fat man. She is just being nice. You are also a health burden to your kids. No kid wants a fat dad. It's time to be honest and make a change. 
EAGLE/VISIONARY. The best stories are transformation stories. Remember that documentary on CrossFit? That guy was in way worse shape than you and he ended up looking like a college athlete. You can do this. Your transformation this year will inspire everyone around you. What was your source of shame can be your source of strength.
OX/PRAGMATIST. Want me to sign up with you? I'll train 3 days a week and help you get after it. Let’s do intermittent fasting together and a month of Keto. Let’s grind.
HUMAN/ FRIEND. I’m sorry this last season has been really hard. Isn’t food amazing? It’s such a joy to take the edge off the stress with pizza and ice cream. But you’re not a teenager anymore. Sadly, my friend, the joyride is over. I get it and I love you, but let’s turn a corner. I’ll be here if you screw up and slip back. Count on it. 

ON FORGIVING YOUR FATHER

LION/ AUTHORITY. You have to confront your dad in love and tell him how he hurt you. This passivity has gone on long enough. You are repeating the very thing you are hurt by. Lean in.
EAGLE/VISIONARY. Imagine the generational breakthrough that will happen if you reconcile and are honest with your father. Think about the healing, the change, the family legacy. Other men may be inspired by your courage and reconcile with their fathers. This could be bigger than you know. 
OX/ PRAGMATIST. I have had to process a ton of pain with my family of origin issues. Here are my best resources, learning, and processing to work through it. I’m down to catch up regularly and walk through your story too if it helps. 
HUMAN/ FRIEND. I'll pray for you when you meet, and catch up after to debrief and process what happened in your heart. Whether he asks for forgiveness, admits his fault, blows up, or completely changes, I will walk this out with you emotionally and be here as a brother.

This goes on until comfort, help, and hope rise in a man’s heart. This happens until he feels like he can move forward. You can do it around a fire pit or while sitting on a couch. But you need these voices to push you into your calling and pull you out of your past. 

Maybe the idea of sitting with a bunch of dudes and trying this feels too awkward. That’s okay. Perhaps you can do this on your own at a table, thinking from each perspective and advising yourself. Maybe you can picture Jesus speaking to you with each of these tones.

The point is not the way you do it; it’s that you do it. You need people speaking into your life telling you truth in multiple dimensions.  

If you only have permission, you will remain immature.
If you only have vision, you will die dreaming.
If you only have challenge, you will become discouraged.
If you only have comfort, you will become soft and lose resilience. 

Why not take the initiative and start creating spaces where this can happen? I find that most men are desperately lonely and don’t know where to turn for wisdom, counsel, and advice. Behind the polite veneer, there is a longing to process pain, wounds, visions, and dreams.
Why not be the man who gathers others to create this space?

Seek the 4 voices this year.

Speak the 4 voices this year.

Your heart and that of your brothers depends on it. 

Cheers.

Jon.

to make spiritual progress this year, it's best to practice “nothing”

97 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail. You know that by now.
But the desire to change, reset, make progress and grow cannot be broken.
There is something in the heart of a man that wants another shot at life.
Another chance to move out of the shadows and into the light.

But in spite of our best efforts, we often fall into a frustrating cycle of failure. 

Try. Fail. Shame. 
Try. Fail. Guilt. 
Resolve. Fail again.
Don’t bother trying.
Settle.

In his book Atomic Habits, one of the most contrarian pieces of advice James Clear gives is about focusing on small habits for the long haul, not seeking massive change in the present.

Tiny habits. Small change. Slow progress.

This may not stir us to get up at 4:30 am and hang with Jocko, but it may actually work in our formation as men. It turns out that over the course of the year, the almost imperceptible is stronger than the heroically unsustainable. And that got me thinking about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. You may or may not have heard of her, but she has something profound to teach us as a community of men. The message of The Little Way.

Thérèse Martin became a Carmelite nun in the late 19th century when she was 15 years old. She did nothing that we would describe as heroic. She lived an obscure life in a cloistered monastery in a small town in France. She died of tuberculosis at 24. Yet she was canonized as a saint and recognized as a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul ll in 1997. Pope St. Pius X called her the greatest saint of modern times. Why?

THE LITTLE WAY. 

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was in touch with reality. She realized that she was not gifted in such a way as to become famous. She didn’t have the public persona to be an "influencer" in her time. Instead, she resolved to just live a small life, the little way of love. 

She wrote: "For me to become great is impossible. I must bear with myself and my many imperfections."  She described herself as "neither capable or called to great feats of public witness."

Truth be told, most of us are not called to great feats of public witness. Regardless of what the media tells us, a few likes on the Gram indicate, or Tik-Tok promises, most of us will live smaller lives. Local lives, known by a community we see day in, day out, and maybe even at times we wish we could escape. 

Yet Thérèse resolved to live where she could, how she could. She resolved to filter everything she did through the lens of God’s love. She resolved to honor God and love others in every interaction, and for her, that was enough. In fact, she viewed what she did as so simple and so small, they were almost nothing.

"My mortifications consisted in breaking my will, always so ready to impose itself on others, in holding back a reply, in rendering little services without any recognition, in not leaning my back against a support when seated… It was through the practice of these nothings that I prepared myself to become the fiancée of Jesus."

The practice of these nothings.
The practice of these "nothings" ended up making her a saint. The practice of these "nothings" gives us more hope and help than the majority of hyped-up religion and clever one-liners that do nothing to change our hearts. 

As much as I love huge goals, massive plans, and game-changing vision, most of it nets out as unsustainable ambition. We need to love where we are, with who God has given us, in real and practical ways. 

Being patient with that kid making you late. Seems like nothing. 
Not needing recognition for the idea at work. Seems like nothing.
Not dropping that zinger to defend your ego. Seems like nothing.
Cleaning the house while everyone is asleep. Seems like nothing.
Going to a prayer meeting when you’re tired. Seems like nothing.
Overlooking that offense. Seems like nothing.

Yet these nothings, these almost imperceptible moments where we follow Jesus, put others first, and deflect attention, give without reward. These nothings add up over time and the little way helps us make progress on the narrow way, the way of meaning and life. 

Rolheiser notes: "Our littleness makes us aware that, for the most part, we cannot do the big things that shape world history. But we can change the world more humbly, by sowing a hidden seed, by being a hidden antibiotic of health inside the soul of humanity, and by splitting the atom of love inside our own selves. 

In 2023, maybe the one thing you can truly do to make progress is practice "nothing."

Here’s to a deep and meaningful year.

Cheers.

Jon. 

God tells the man who cares

The Bible was written in tears and to tears it will yield its best treasures. 

God has nothing to say to the frivolous man.

A. W. Tozer

Simeon is one of the most overlooked men in the Bible. Most people don’t even recognize his name. But Simeon teaches a vital lesson about being men of passion in a time of mediocrity. Simeon is only mentioned in a few short verses in Luke 2. We don’t know much about him, the length of his days, his hobbies and passions, his wife or family. But God knew Simeon, and as far as the scriptures are concerned, this is all that mattered. Luke 2 records:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him … It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 
Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel."

The majority of people missed the birth of Jesus. God snuck into our world almost unnoticed. But a few people were let in on the secret of his coming. A few people beheld the miracle in their midst while the world moved slowly on. Simeon was one of them. 

The priests dedicating Jesus didn’t notice the Messiah in front of them. 
That Pharisees didn’t notice Jesus in their quest for holiness.
The Sadducees didn’t notice Jesus in their navigation of Roman power. 
The Essenes didn’t notice Jesus in their protests against compromise. 
But Simeon did. A normal godly man held the Messiah in his hands.

What set him apart? Why did God tell him what he withheld from others?

His hunger. Simeon's heart was set on the consolation of God's people.
While other men his age were concerned with the normal pursuits of life, Simeon’s heart longed for more. He wanted to see Israel redeemed and restored. His personal peace was tied to his people’s peace. His heart was connected with God's larger concerns, not just his personal problems.

A.W. Tozer wrote a book called, God Tells the Man Who Cares. It was an invitation to walk deeply with God and escape the trivial nature of contemporary life. And it’s an invitation that God extends to us today. 

At this time of year, we can tend to turn inward to reflect on all that’s gone behind. We look back at our losses and wins, joys and sorrows, fears and regrets. And we start to turn our eyes to the year ahead, our goals, dreams, ambitions, and wants. Yet, we can fall into the trap of processing our lives without reference to divine priorities. We can be choked out by things as simple as "the cares of this life and the desires for other things" We can move into planning mode without seeking God. We can run after the same things as the pagans without even knowing it. 

Why not take a few moments this week to ask God what’s on his heart for 2023? Why not process and dream through a kingdom lens? Why not ask him to stir a passion for the consolation of his people in your time? Why not ask what the agenda of heaven is for the coming year, not just your personal goals and vision? Aligning your heart with God's heart attracts the attention of heaven.

Who knows, maybe God will let you in on some of the things he is doing that others fail to see. 

God rewarded Simeon, and God wants to reward you too. 

He rewards those who diligently seek him.
He speaks to those who care. 
He guides those set on doing his will.  
Rise above the frivolous masses. 
Be a man who cares.

Cheers.

Jon.

public failure, hidden success

"Everything they do is done for people to see."
Jesus, critiquing the Pharisees

Several weeks ago, I gave a sermon on The Secret Place.

For whatever reason, it got disproportionate feedback. The central idea was this: "Society thinks we do our best work in public; God thinks we do our best work in private." I think it hit the sciatic nerve of performance fatigue we all feel.

There is a relentless pressure to live public lives. Lives that are seen, lives of high visibility, lives that are applauded. We all know the psychology of "likes" on social media, but it can be a real challenge to break free from them. Real talk - how many times do you open social media simply to see how many views you have, not to watch more content? The answer, by the way, is on average a staggering 151 times a day.

Jesus warned about the addiction of being seen. It was one of the corrupting forces of Pharisaical religion.

"Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others."

Loving the place of honor.

The most important seats.

Greeted with respect.

Seen. Noticed. Loved.

This is the life Jesus warns us about. This is the life he calls us to reject.

Contrary to this, Jesus gives us a vision of a life lived before God. It’s a hidden life, withdrawing from human eyes to be seen by our Father. In Matthew 6, he says:

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Public praise verses private affirmation. This is one of the keys to the kingdom. We all know this, but do we orient our lives around it? It’s one thing to agree, another to change the rhythms of your life to embody it.

One of the desert fathers, Abba Paphnutius, wanted to know how God viewed humanity. As he was dying, he asked God to show him if there were still any saints living on the earth. God answered him with a vision of three holy men: a humble village headman, a powerful merchant, and a reformed robber. Abba Paphnutius was shaken and reported to his fellow monks, "No one in this world ought to be despised, for in every condition of human life there are souls that please God and have their hidden deeds wherein He takes delight."

Men celebrate public accomplishments. God celebrates private devotion. Saints can be found in every vocation, for their lives are not defined by what they do but who they love. The public place may make us feel significant, but it’s rarely where we are formed. In fact, the public place reveals our formation. The reason so many people have public failures is because they have private deficits. They haven’t built secret reserves to handle the weight of public life. They collapse under the weight of influence, because they don’t have a foundation of character to sustain it.

In his film of heartbreaking beauty, A Hidden Life, Terrence Malick tells the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer committed to resisting the Nazis in a small, obscure village during WW2. It’s a simple story of a godly man with deep convictions, refusing to compromise in public because of private convictions. In one powerful scene, a Nazi officer is telling him to give in, swear allegiance to Hitler, and get on with his life.

He warns Franz, "Do you imagine that anything you do will change the course of this war? That anyone outside this court will ever hear of you? No one will be changed. The world will go on as before. You'll vanish."

Franz replies: "A man worth anything has only one thing to consider: whether he is acting rightly or wrongly."

Franz lived his life before God, a life of devotion and faithfulness in a way that confronted the broken value system of his world. It’s a life that shows us that what we call success is mere vanity, a chasing after the wind, and that true life is found in the secret place. The title of the film was based on a quote from Middlemarch by George Elliot:

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

But the German officer was wrong. Though unknown to the world, Franz was known to God and his people. He was later declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church. 

Dramatic events may get all the attention, but devoted lives usher in God’s kingdom. It’s normal men like you and me, living before God, content to be faithful in the small things that bring the world out of brokenness and into redemptive love. Unhistoric acts create the world we actually need.

It’s the hidden life of playing with your kids when you are tired and have nothing left in the tank that the Father loves.

It’s the hidden life of serving your wife when she is exhausted and overwhelmed that the Father loves.

It’s the hidden life of prayer and devotion when you want to watch the game that the Father loves.

It’s the hidden life of sacrificial generosity when you would rather buy another gadget that the Father loves.

It’s the hidden life of absorbing criticism without the need to respond that the Father loves.

Let’s resolve to be men who live from the secret place. Men like Jesus who "often" withdraw to spend time with the Father. Men known by God, seen in heaven, who seek our reward in the places the world can never find.

May God give you a small and unnoticed week, filled with unhistoric acts that fill your world with beauty and love.

Cheers.

Jon.