Present connection to the past....the Truth remains unchanged.....

"Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works." Psalm 145:3-5

Irenaeus (2nd century AD - c. 202) was the Bishop of Lugdunum, Gaul in the Roman Empire (modern day Lyons, France), an early Church father and apologist, (who was discipled by Polycarp whom it is recorded that "He had been a disciple of John") felt compelled to write about the heresies that were being promoted a scant 100 or so years after the monumental events of Christ's triumph.

Corruption, introduced by the omission of Adam (who turned to his own understanding and abilities despite evidence that God was indeed capable, more so than he) and the culpability of Eve in the eviction from the Garden, had already started to distort and mislead many from the Truth lived and reported by the original apostles and passed on to their disciples in the tradition and commission that Christ established the Church.

We see the broad and sweeping evidence in today's society of what happens as man co-ops and recreates truth, rejecting the very absolute authority of the definer and creator of such Truth, into a more palpable and easily manipulated version of subjective truth. The Church has undergone man-made designs, changes not ill-concieved or maliciously adopted, that have done more harm and destruction than advancement of the Gospel because of the agendas, both hidden and known, of man to adapt the Truth to culture rather than bring the culture to the Truth.

As we have watched the epic and historical process of governance in our nation's tradition, those who would have once accepted and believe such absolutes can be whittled down, through the cheap and often self-serving subtleties humanity visits upon itself, to the degree that what was once subtle differences of theological opinion have filtered their way into the erosion of core Truth, at least in the perception of Man, to the point where the original bears no resemblance to the current copy promoted.

As Irenaeus says in the beginning of his writing, AGAINST HERIESES, "by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and take [those] captives."

"Error," Irenaeus continues, "is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward from, to make it to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself."

That is why the teaching from Scott Engelman about the 'nice guy' so disrupted and disturbed me, carrying through to the Able Men meeting the following day to the point of seriously pondering that maybe such an association with "men humble in their own brokenness, and living in the gratitude of His mercies beyond measure" who are pursuing God's call upon them to impact men (by leading in God's community those values and morals designed and subsequently abused by a fallen humanity) was not where I, in my spiritual growth, was yet capable of serving faithfully and effectively in and why I should leave the group…because of the vestiges of 'nice guy' that haunt my story and my walk.

For the 'nice guy', as Engelman points out and Irenaeus echoes from the halls of history, "error" dresses itself up to be attractive and is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing……often mistaken in the lofty places of our community of faith as 'godly Christians'. And within the structure given in the teachings of the make-up of the 'nice guy' lie truth within the story and the agenda that I default to in the wounds of my story.

In Engelman's discussion, the 'nice guy' has the following characteristics that culminate in the "I will avoid chaos by hiding from it"-ology of relationship styles of masculinity……

He is more socially acceptably helpless, requiring those to come to his 'aid' through the hassle-free relational style to others…..i.e. 'You can't be upset with me, I'm a nice guy!' Through the manipulation of his 'nice guy attitude', he promotes a 'personal choice' of rescue from others, where they feel that such rendering of aid is of their own volition and yet remains disengaged from a deeper relational bond with other men.

Too often, Engelman points out, the dysfunctional 'nice guy' is discovered to be bland, dull, and internally dead bringing those within his relational circles to feel guilty because they recognize this 'dazzling dud' but blame themselves because of the clothing the nice guy offers…….

The conviction felt by this dysfunctional masculinity is based in self-contempt and lack of wisdom; for surely he would change if he only knew how and it is your 'job' to hope for the change to come. "I want to change, but don't know how…." Can anybody else see the wise, young ruler who asked what it took to follow Christ and went away saddened by the answer?

The 'nice guy' isn't alone in this dysfunctional masculinity and shares with the other types Engelman talks about in the last M3 meeting the core statement:
"I feel weak and afraid to powerfully enter into and to shape my world as a man so I will work hard to avoid and compensate for my inadequacies."

RED ALERT!! RED ALERT!! Core wound breached……we're going DOWN!!!! That is what I felt in the depth of my heart as I listened to this teaching…..Though I am not all these things, I can recognize enough to see the cracks in the hull……

But in that darkness, where the upset and self-loathing of a disrupted soul resides is the realization of recognizing and mourning the loss of true masculine purpose; to be a blessing and to create the environment for life in the chaos and darkness of this world…..kinda like realizing that you want to breathe, but can't because your own hands are choking you……being counter-purposed to our own desire of living a Godly designed masculinity.

As a brother in Christ (BIC)said, "Knowing is half the battle." When we realize the agenda our broken and sinful masculinity has, we can recognize when we are relating in those disrupted styles and surrender our tendencies to God's manipulations. As one of my mentors and BsIC said, "God will direct and guide you in your darkness [of your dysfunctional relational style]."

This isn't just a masculine thing….its a broken, sinful humanity thing.

I spent last night watching God move, in answering to prayer, in the lives of those that have intersected and been engaged in this journey, and how the realization, or return, to the absolute authority and truth of Jesus Christ is always an inspiring and hopeful thing; a realization of the joy that the Holy Spirit makes available to those who believe in the processes of this corrupt and chaotic world of broken creation.

And thinking how sadly it is because of the very nature of humanity's sinful self-preservation (and the wounds that we cause our children, our families, and loved ones) that the immediate following thoughts (far beyond the praises of God's loving and merciful nature of forgiving and empowering the very return of such to the fold and the stepping out in answering to the calling to purpose) that I looked for the hidden agendas in the methods and words of such displayed realizations of those prayers simply because of past histories and wounded experiences..

I was built to be a blessing, to bring life in the context of chaos and darkness where the light of life's heartbeat can be grown. That is my warrior purpose, and one that I've recognized too often I use for my own purposes.

"They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretence of [superior] knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the universe;" Irenaeus states, "as if, forsooth, they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal, than that God who created the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein."

And therein, even in the midst of such uncertainty of the sinful tendencies of my 'nice guy' wounds, lies the answer of the assurance of –no matter how zigzagged or hazy the path I stride upon borne of the free will choices I have made and the interactions of the choices also borne of free will of those that intersect and blend into my pathway ---I walk a path towards the hope assured and the desired relationship with my Creator, because I know my old self and have seized upon him to embrace his brokenness I hide and gaze at the Father's face as a prodigal once more.

Peter's question echoes in my head under the wise and heartfelt counsel given in both the personal disruption and the chaos visited upon those who intersect my world….."Lord, should I forgive my brother seven times?" And Christ's response of "Seventy times seven."

History shows me that the tendency of mankind is to allot such a limitation upon the number of times that we may visit upon each other the corruption of our sinful desire to protect ourselves and establish upon the chaos of our lives the order to which Adam believed himself (and thus our thoughts too) capable of. I will treat you nicely, but without substance and depth.

And, yet, in the realization of the powerful and righteous nature of the God I follow (who has forgiven me daily for the sins known and unknown that have coursed through this fallen structure), my course of action does not allow me the luxury of the temporary satisfaction of manipulating the world around me according to my own experiences and wounds, for I must be able to forgive and give without reservation because of the forgiveness I myself have partook of and continue to do so on a daily basis of need.

I must move within the chaos to bring that which I have been designed to bring, absent of my agenda and my requirements, but set upon the realization of provision of acceptance that Christ purchased for me with His blood.

To essentially believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to move within the lives of those who have caused the greatest pain to redeem them and inspire those who fearfully contemplate dreams denied despite overwhelming and possibly limiting mountains to overcome…….and through the desire to know and walk with the superiority of relationship with God, by its very nature, have to be willing to be hurt very severely should the redemption of another prove false and the dreams of one fall into despair.

To dare to reach into the lion's jaws, absent of my own agenda, and stay the course of God's absolute truth. Even to the expense of my own preservation and the lost of that precious agenda that everyone, myself included, has.

To fall upon the sword of another for the testimonial and redemption of an outsider, someone maybe that is not even involved in the circles I inhabit, with all of my body screaming against such unwise and foolish actions. I want to protect myself; from pain, from sorrow, and even from the disappointment of evil's influence.
Even at the expense that such sacrifice we may give (as we are guilty of doing with Christ's purchase of our punishment upon the Cross) would not be realized at that moment ---indeed, if ever.

Even in the darkness of our own dysfunctional relational styles, there is a hope that shines brighter than our own understanding and it is through our refusal to allow the base, sinful old self the power and effort to protect ourselves that we find such hope simply buried in the filth of our own sinful desires of self-protection and service.

"For even as gold, when submersed in filth, loses not on that account its beauty," Irenaeus says, "but retains its own native qualities, the filth having no power to injure the gold….."

Our righteousness, once given through the grace and mercy of Christ cannot be tarnished or diminished in the realization of our own brokenness but rather uncovered and allowed to be treasured and shown as our dependence upon the Creator's design.

Live to be a blessing……and be blessed beyond your own capabilities……

As a husband,

As a father,

And as a man desirous and in full pursuit of God…..

The moment of man's surrender....................

“When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the orchard. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" The man replied, "I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." And the LORD God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it."” (Genesis 3:6-12 NET.)

It is interesting to note, in the study of how and why the biblical formation of masculinity and femininity has gone so wrong as to produce a society today that is nothing like the original intent; where men are feminized and women are left with less than they originally sought in the fight for ‘equality’ among the sexes, that the axioms that dot the societal landscape can be found in the biblical text of our first parents; Adam and Eve.

Scott Engelmann, of the Awakened Hearts Ministries, opened the proverbial Pandora’s box wide open this last Saturday as he began to discuss “What men do that frustrates women: Understanding why we do the things we do.” You can go to www.m3mministries.org and find the topic notes that I’ll be discussing from.

As in any discussion regarding a problem, one must go back to the beginning and chart the progression of the problem now noted in awakening eyes; i.e. the economy’s ills aren’t a problem President Bush created, it started during the Clinton administration and is just now coming to age.

Our generational problems with the youth aren’t something that started at their birth but something that started long ago and has compounded into today’s generation lost.

Engelmann calls this day, “The day that forever changed your manhood.” And it wasn’t God, much like the economy is being blamed on President Bush, who caused manhood to be forever altered in the generations to follow Adam; it was Adam himself who cursed the landscape of relational beings called mankind and it is the result of his action (or rather inaction) that caused the whole of mankind to be cursed, gender-specifically, in those generations following.

The problem that exists today; feminized men, gender-confusion, broken homes, marriages of fragile and immoral structures, and the continued disassociation of generations of youth come from one moment in history; when the first man failed to live according to his biblical purpose and bless the woman he had been given for relationship.

Much like a disaster-recreation specialist will do with an airplane crash, a devasting fire, or a natural disaster; Engelmann takes us through the one disaster that has plagued mankind throughout the ages. He does this, not in a effort to bring conviction and disconnection to men today but to call them back to the purpose to which they have been built and to show them how to do it.

Where John Eldredge speaks of what a man is designed to be; wild and untamed; Robert Lewis speaks of the nobility of man; strong and true; and Dr. Larry Crabb speaks of the failures of man; Scott Engelmann starts more at a more logical point; where and why man has gone wrong and takes us on a journey to recreate the disaster that has echoed throughout the generations of humanity since.

Adam, simply put, was a ‘nice guy’. When the snake, representative in Ancient Near East culture of chaos and darkness, entered into the garden Adam wasn’t off in the back forty tending the sheep, frolicking with the buffalo, or gazing upon the wonders that God had created. He was standing next to his co-warrior and partner in this grand adventure that God had made them for……and was silent.

He didn’t correct Eve, telling her that God didn’t say that a simple touch would cause the punishment of death to be occurred and that such an action as eating a prohibited item was against the very nature of the God they conversed with, walked with, in the beauty of creation’s garden and therefore a sin. No, Adam allowed the conversation to go on and allowed Eve to embellish what she didn’t know about God’s prohibition.

The snake convinced Eve that her feelings that God was indeed holding out the wealth of His power from her and her husband were true. And Adam remained silent, though he had first hand knowledge of the wealth and scope of God’s power and the blessings received; the woman standing beside him was proof of such glanderous giving.

Yeah, yeah, heard that story many times in the cushy chair of the church you attend? You know that its all Adam’s fault, that he didn’t stop what would become mankind’s downfall with a simple “No” or by casting the serpent out of the garden proper? On the surface, such things are indeed what happened and are evidence of Adam’s failure. But what brings such weight and disastrous consequences to such a simplistic and momentary spot in the wrinkles of time?

We can jump back two chapters in the creation account, to the beginning of the beginning……God made.

In Genesis 1:1, we read the first words of creation….”God made the heaven and the earth.” Neither was made in full form that we know today, the earth was ‘waste and formless’ and ‘darkness upon the deep’ ruled. Simply put, out of darkness and chaos, God created beauty and light. This is where life began, far beyond some primordial pool of ectoplasm and scrape materials. The Spirit of God moved upon the deep and spoke creation into existence. God brought out of darkness light and chaos order.

And God created man.

There is a host of authors who have identified what man was created as; an image-bearer of God. The animals weren’t created in God’s image and therefore were inadequate to be a companion to man. God was too superior. Woman was created to be a co-inheritor and warrior of relationship; thus being a suitable companion to Adam (see Engelmann’s discussion “What a woman wants”). As woman was the warrior to combat Adam’s loneliness, so Adam was the warrior to sustain a life-inviting environment (the garden) for his wife and all of creation.

The serpent (aka the snake) came into the Garden, darkness and chaos, and entices the woman….the warrior of relationship….to embrace it. Adam, who’s purpose was to combat such remains silent. The image-bearer of God’s nature; bringing life into the world of darkness and chaos, remains silent and allows darkness and chaos to gain a foothold. Adam didn’t speak or move against the chaos. A mistake, surely, and the first step into the headlong journey that mankind has taken empty of God’s purpose.

But, even then, even in the midst of such a mistake----a lack of movement----mankind could’ve been saved. As with any life-changing event, it is the compounding of errors made that increases the scope of the problem…..much like a rock gaining speed as it rolls downhill.

Adam compounds the problem. As Engelmann says, “He chooses to not trust God with a now growing problem. He forgets God and seeks to solve the problem of chaos on his own.” Adam disconnects from the relationship with God and from the benefit of His grace. And mankind has been compounding the problem ever since.

And he throws the one who was built to combat his greatest fear; loneliness, when confronted with his own complacency. When God seeks them out after this disaster, Adam points to the woman and says, “She made me do it.” An excuse that men have used throughout the ages since. Eve may have taken the first bite out of the forbidden fruit, but Adam was the source of sin’s introduction to the world.
“For this reason, as through one man sin came into the world, and death because of sin, and so death came to all men, because all have done evil.” Romans 5:12 (NET)
So, what does this have to do with masculinity today?

We have developed through the generations men who have lived in a world that is set against them, and promote such things that seek to offset the feelings of incompetence, inadequate capabilities, and impotence so that we, as men, will not face the fear that if we are exposed the world will realize that we are not enough of a ‘man’. We promote our fear that God is not good enough to handle such fears and so as men we seek to protect, keep, and care for ourselves in a world that is opposed to us.

We, as Adam did in the Garden event, don’t move into darkness and chaos to create life-inviting environments. We don't invite our co-warriors to bring their image of God they bear into such an environment.

We bear the curse of Adam; seeking the same thing he did…the protection of ourselves in a world that hasn’t changed from the moment in time when Adam was called upon the bear the image of his creator and sacrificially step into the chaos to bring life-giving relationship to a wounded warrior…his wife, Eve. He sought to take matters into his own hand, distrusting the mercy and abilities of God to redeem the situation, and compounded the problem through his inaction.

Men continue to do that today; look at the feminist movement, look at the TV shows, and look at the generation which is coming into power through the ‘change’ platform of Barack Obama, rather than face the change that needs to be made at the beginning of the problem; men not living as men and women not living as women.

Simply put, Engelmann makes the statement that resonates in the hearts of today’s men…..”I feel weak and afraid to powerfully enter into and to shape my world as a man so I will work hard to avoid and compensate for my inadequacies.”

So, is there any hope?

Yes, and it lies within the realization that, like Adam, we need God’s mercy and grace. In facing the fact we are inadequate to the task of being the totality of our purpose; image-bearers of God who use the power of Him to move in a world set against us.

As the life verse that I was given during the story weekend I attended so long ago…..”And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is perfected in weakness.’” It is in that moment, when we as men are fully vulnerable, fully inadequate to the task that we find ourselves in the unprotected position of exposure, that we become the reflection of God’s love and power as we were built to be.

We love sacrificially, as Paul tells us to “love your wives as Christ loved the Church”, and move into the chaos once more to dispel the darkness so that our co-inheritors can bring life-enhancing relationship as valued, desired, and beautiful reflections of God’s hatred of loneliness.

It is when we realize that we cannot affect change ourselves, that our power is too weak due to its corruption, that we desperately cling to God’s ability to protect our hearts. And we experience the freedom that can only be sustained by a relationship with the image we bear to love as He loves us.

“Because masculinity was designed to reflect the life-giving power of God in this world, we cannot be men when we live lives distant and disconnected from God.” Engelmann concludes, “A man’s masculinity can no more reflect the power of a God he is distant from than the moon reflect the light of the sun it is distant from.”

Who's image do you reflect?

The discussion today is based on Awakened Hearts Ministries' Scott Engelmann and his notes regarding "What men do that frustrates women" and in part earlier discussions presented through the M3 Ministry. www.ahmministries.org and www.m3mministries.org are the websites of this ministry.

Neither AHM, the parent ministry of M3 or Scott Engelmann have endorsed this writing. This is representative of my own personal views on the information presented.

Men Mentoring Men (M3) is a sub-ministry of Awakened Heart Ministries. Awakened Heart Ministries is a non-profit organization founded in 2008. We offer a variety of ministries all committed to the restoration, healing and growth of the core relationships of life: relationship with God, spouse and family. AHM was founded with the enthusiastic support of individuals and couples whose lives and relationships have been richly changed by the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

For more information about AHM or any of our sub-ministries, please email us at:

info@ahmministries.org, or call 248-508-0992.

AHM also partners with Grace Counseling Center, Dr. Tim Hogan, Director, 313-343-9000.

Awakened Heart Ministries
P.O. Box 4941
Troy, MI 48099

How can we be compassionate in a broken world?

Can we be a people who form compassionate convictions about God, people and life which gives us categories to listen/direct people to places other than relief when they talk to us about 'undeserved' suffering? Is there something we can believe in very deeply that allows us to freely move in the direction God is moving in as we listen to the disappointments and tragedies of another man's story? In the midst of real hurt, is it possible to really get excited about something bigger that God is doing?

Job was a moral and blessed man, but full of human-born fear. He was blameless, without consistent sin in his life, practicing good deeds, and shunned evil. He had good relationships, possessions in abundance, and was afflicted with no real pain; either health-wise or spiritual.

Yet he feared for his children, sacrificing for them on a daily basis and operated under the assumption that God’s kindness coupled with his moral carefulness would not cause him to lose his blessings.

God has a development plan for His children, one borne of suffering beyond our human endurance, to cause us to question our very faith, which relies upon the assumption of the unverifiable, the illogical, and the absence of provable reliance.

Satan’s agenda, challenging our belief that God’s promise that He loves us, is used by God to bring us into stronger belief in those things; in essence God uses the evilness of the fallen one to bring about His desire for us to know Him.

This is where the prosperity, emergent, and work doctrines fall into the false assumptions, placing human understanding and characteristics upon a God that is beyond our feeble and corrupt human comprehension and will in fact perform the opposite of the desired effect; such doctrines deny us the ability to grow in the furnace of suffering to greater understanding of who God is and what purpose to which His agenda is served in such brutality.

It is not wrong for us to want to end suffering, to bring about peace and joy within the corruption of the world, until it becomes our mission; to reduce suffering by bringing about blessings through servicing the needs abundant around us.

In the absence of blessings, we too often turn away from God’s agenda for humanity and ourselves individually. Life is unpredictable, simply because we try and control it as far as we humanly can and it refuses to cooperate, being under the temporary authority of the fallen one.

It is when we reach the vision of how God sees us that we can walk into the world of suffering and tribulation with joy and loving mercy, and the outer influences of the broken world cannot reclaim our hearts. Thus, the agenda of Satan is thwarted and the furtherance of the Kingdom is promoted.

“…for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.” (Philippians 2:30 ESV)

Epaphroditus, who had fallen deathly sick during his time with Paul, was grieved when his brethren learned of it. Not because it seemed that he was weak, rather because of service for Christ, Epaphroditus had recklessly hazard his life for that service….not caring for his own welfare but placing the welfare of another above his own.

Such early Christians were known as ‘parabolani’, or reckless people.

It is in such service, as parabolani, that Christians can find such compassionate convictions regarding God, people and life that causes them to reflect upon the larger agenda of God within ‘undeserved’ suffering. It is within the ‘sphere of mystery’, as discussed by Dr. Larry Crabb, that we truly find movement towards that agenda despite unpredictable and unharnessable order because we rely solely upon God to guide us into the midst of the storm, trusting that if the ship sinks that it is because of God’s best plan for us even as we disappear beneath the waves.

We lash ourselves to the solidness of God’s promises and laugh in the face of the unpredictable chaos of an unforgiving world.

In such recklessness, we cease trying to explain undeserved and indescribable pain that haunts our journey as we walk closer to God. We stop trying to ‘grasp’ control to never be hurt again, by people or circumstances, and become uncaring of the ‘damage’ that happens to our hearts as we are buffeted by the harsh waves of a world increasingly violent.

And, in the movement into unexplainable and undeserved suffering, we truly realize God’s promised rest; the rest gained in salvation for the journey in this life, and the eternal rest that awaits us in the heavenly realm of our home.

As Parabolani, we rejoice in suffering –albeit a weaker suffering than Christ was visited upon by the rejection of this world. Christ suffered….to the point of death, not so He could fulfill His own agenda but rather that He would fulfill the agenda of His Father, to be a perfect sacrifice therefore eliminating the penalty for sin that condemned all of mankind.

Through our ‘eager’ suffering, however it manifests itself in this world, we promote the welfare of another and become the means by which the Holy Spirit can affect true repentance and salvation for the lost, which we once were and for which Christ died upon a Cross of wood and iron.

Adam Clarke reflects in his works that “The humiliation and exaltation of Christ are subjects which we cannot contemplate too frequently, and in which we cannot be too deeply instructed.

Our faith is about humility, and humility is ‘the effect of the action of God, circumstances, other people, ourselves, or of any and all of these on our lives.” It is freedom from pride, and is despicable in the world of control, management, and self-service. In the humility of our faith, we find ourselves reliant upon God’s favor, not our own understanding.

Christ’s humility and passion were a vital component of His sacrifice upon the Cross, otherwise it would not have been necessary and another way would have been affected in the plan of God’s redemption of His children.

Without our own process of humility, by which we cast ourselves upon the righteousness of our sinful condemnation, punishable by death, we oppose God’s agenda and rely upon ourselves for freedom from that justified punishment; pride and self-confidence which are the cornerstone of humanistic religion. God destroys such notions with the requirement of the opposite extremes; humility and self-denial.

As Christians, called to bring understanding of God’s hidden agenda to those who truly seek it, we must understand this theology of suffering that Christ exposed us to in His ministry upon this earth.

If we consider that Christ’s suffering and death were sufficient in the eyes of God as payment in full for the punishment of man’s failure to trust and rest in God’s purpose, we can contemplate the unlimited power, glory, and authority of Christ and God in the undeserved and undesired suffering to which we are called to experience in true joy and expectation.

Through this realization of ‘joyful suffering’, we develop the inner spiritual eyes to see ourselves as God sees us; redeemed and restored.

Then sin has no lasting claim upon our human flesh.

We realize that by the authority of God, we are cleansed and made perfect, and walk within a manner that Christ walked as He spoke to a world that did not hear Him.

Then we no longer give voice to the human desire for the reduction of such suffering and an increase in blessings as we define them.

We become true lights in a world darkened by man’s desire for such things and give not an answer to suffering deserved and undeserved, but give release that is eternal, because the suffering one is experiencing becomes something both unexplained and yet understood.

It is then that we become a walking testimony, for we lack the prideful boast of our own wisdom and prudence and shun such labels as ‘wise’ or ‘esteemed’ men. We face reproach and persecution with the eagerness of fulfilling God’s agenda for such causes and embrace such labels as ‘fool’ and “unworthy’ because we are called such for the sake of Christ.

“We are made to seem foolish for Christ, but you are wise in Christ; we are feeble, but you are strong; you have glory, but we have shame. Even to this hour we are without food, drink, and clothing, we are given blows and have no certain resting-place; And with our hands we do the hardest work: when they give us curses we give blessings, when we undergo punishment we take it quietly; When evil things are said about us we give gentle answers: we are made as the unclean things of the world, as that for which no one has any use, even till now.” (1 Corinthians 4:10-13 BBE)

We stop looking at our brethren and those still lost within the Body, or outside the body, that may suffer less (though not in their own estimations) than we do. We stop trying to control through our actions and words the agendas of others that come within our sphere of life; seeking only to show constancy and patience that confounds and entices others to seek out what we have found.

We rejoice in the ‘poverty’ of our possessions, finances, or persons and understand with proper prospective the contempt of others for what our faith is. We stop promoting our own agenda, that of relief of suffering and the promotion of blessings either for ourselves or others, and rest upon the understanding of God’s authority and wisdom for those we once held so close.

And in the midst of suffering, in our own eyes, at the level of Job; where we would be blameless, upright, abhorrent of sin, and fearful of God; we find God revelation of Himself to us.

A God who is much larger than we can humanly realize, who is more powerful than we can ever emulate, and who has no reason or responsibility to explain Himself to us.
It is then, as Christians leaders, that we realize the fullness of God through the denial of ourselves in service to others, despite the agendas to which we are exposed.

We can then answer the question that should haunt the minds of the elders as they hear the stories of others;

“What is God up to in this person’s life that led God to allow this painful cruelty to happen with or without His intervention?”

We no longer offer theological excuses for the undeserved or understood suffering of those we face with compassionate relationship, but offer instead the promotion of understanding God’s ulterior motive.

We seek not our own agendas or become entrapped in the agenda of another as we hear the pain in the story told. We become excited by the opportunity presented to guide our fellow brethren into the deeper understanding of God through the representation of Christ’s ministry.

We seek in those circumstances not to be as The Corinthians were presenting themselves….wise, strong, and giants amongst men but rather seek the glory of foolishness, weakness, and shame for the sake of Christ.

To suffer those things to which we are allotted in our journey for the greater benefit of representing Christ to a fallen and broken world of lost souls.

A fellow warrior......designed and equipped by God.

"One cannot disregard the role of Holy Scriptures, Tradition, Culture, and a male God. From birth onwards, they define the role of the female as secondary and inferior, they define the role of the woman as secondary and as supportive of that of her husband or men in general." Renate Volpe, leadership coach, facilitator, author and CEO of the HIRS Women's development consultancy; "What do women want and need?" Business Report article 8/5/2008

Apparently Ms Volpe reads a different Bible than I do, because I don't see where it says in the "Holy Scriptures" influenced by a male God that the female gender is inferior or secondary to the male. Of course, according to Ms. Volpe, boys are allowed to run roughshod and empowered to 'be all they are', while women are taught their role is to take care of the rest of the world......and ".....it is therefore not surprising that, when you ask a woman what she wants, she often has no clue," Volpe concludes.

It is a question that men, being the 'brutes' they are, grunt and mutter under their breath about for the generations that have followed Adam. Even the 'greatest' mind in psychology, Sigmund Freud, threw in the towel. "The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What exactly does a woman want?'"

The Feminist movement failed to define the 'needs' of its believer's and caused more damage than it was originally intended to. While triumphing 'equality of the sexes', such a movement further muddied the waters of physical and mental inferiorities and concentrated on a concerted attack upon professional and ethical demands. By maligning boys and their older selves, men, such feminists devalued themselves and the God-ordained strengths. "I am woman, hear me ROAR!" became the battle cry and the superwoman; mother, wife, career woman, and activist; was born. And women began to die.

What does a woman want? is one of those questions that bring perplexed looks to anyone, of either sex, that it is asked to. No one knows what a woman wants, even though the answer is given in the very 'holy scriptures' that Volpe mistakes as a source of inferiority. Such biblical quotes as scripture stating women should not speak up in church, should not hold leadership roles in the biblical community, and should 'submit' to their husbands lead such angry women as Volpe to such claims. They are far from the truth and further away from what God spoke through the writers of the Scriptures. True; culture has created the 'war of the sexes' and with that distortion of biblical creative design of each is giving way to homosexuals, lesbian, gender-confused, and trans-gendered distortions of Godly creation. It has created the 'feminized man' and the 'manly woman'. Gone are the traditional thoughts behind the raising of male and female children to a morph of gender ambiguity. Both sexes are far from the traditional and biblically designed roles they had. And the world is hurting because of it. "Behind every man is a p*****-off woman," as the saying goes. Unfortunately, that is the only thing that society and the feminists got right.

Most pastors won't even go deeper with this topic; simply shrugging their hands in surrender as they try and equate 'helper' as an 'equal and important' partnership. Several have excellent oration of this; women, in no way inferior in the eyes of God, are to willingly submit themselves under another's authority....an equal serving another by allowing them to lead. Some point out that men are to be servant-leaders in the role of Spiritual head of the family; serving the needs of their wives, their children, and their communities first before themselves. Each is a step in the process of reclaiming biblical gender design for both sexes, but neither fully gives to me an adequate answer to the age-old cry of both men and women.................

What do women WANT??!??!!!!!

If we can discover that, we can rebalance the structure of the family from falling over the cliff into universal disaster. If we can find that reasoning, that answers that ancient cry within the bones of all mankind, we can find restoration of marriage...far beyond an 'equal, universal' societal definition. It goes far beyond men reclaiming masculinity and women defining feminity. It lies in rediscovering the God-designed definition of what is a man...and what is a woman.

There the answer lies dormant and in clear view.

I have often said that men were designed to move in chaos and darkness, protecting the beauty and order which is woman. It is the baseline reaction of any man, except those distorted by evil, to react to the 'damsel in distress.' We want to fix, fight for, and gain the victory 'kiss' of the princess in the ivory tower to which we are owed for fighting the evil dragons and overcoming the traps and snares waded through along the way. We make the woman the prize of the fight. We lose the battle as we turn to this woman and receive a right roundhouse to the jaw.

Women, I have said, are the beauty and order of the balanced equation that God designed into His more troublesome creation. They bring nourishment and nurturing to all things and are the source of support, edification, and adulation that all successful and balanced men yearn for. This is represented in the marriages that are successful through the years; no matter the trouble, no matter the trials. It is why Noah sits beside the bedside of his love, ravaged by Altimer's, and gently falls into death's sweet embrace with her as their journey on this life ends (The Notebook).

The brokenness of the balance that God designed into the makeup of man and woman is, as is all sin and corruption that feeds this fallen world, a result of the Fall. But, understanding what that balance is requires that we go back to and examine the reasons why God told Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life" and why He told Eve, "Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you."

I have stated, if you have followed this blog in the journey I've undertaken, that Adam was created outside the Garden of Eden.....in the chaos and darkness of the creation world. As John Eldredge accurately describes, "Men were born to be wild..." He was created from the dust of the earth, shaped and molded into the human image of God Himself. The Garden was created for Adam's purpose, for him to tend and work to keep the chaos and darkness away. God declared everything 'good' up until Adam. And then God recognized that an imbalance had occurred...which was bad. The first time in the creation account that God says something is other than 'good'.

Women, far from being secondary or inferior, are far more. In the creation of Eve, Scott Engelmann; Spiritual Director of Awakened Hearts Ministries points out that "according to God something more was necessary if a man was going to fulfill all that God had planned for him as God's representative here on the earth." Paul points out what is necessary in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 "But in relationships among the Lord's people, women are not independent of men, and men are not independent of women. For although the first woman came from man, all men have been born from women ever since, and everything comes from God." As in the beginning, as Engelmann points out, "Eve was created for Adam, as Adam was designed to meet Eve's needs." God created an interdependent balance in the creation of mankind, each equipped to fulfill the needs of the other and both with distinct and intertwined identities that desire such balance. Distinctly separate, made to complement and balance each other.

"And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And the man said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.'" And, since the Fall, both sexes have desired that balance and tension that was created in our design. This is why same-sex relationships of a sexual and physical nature never seem to work, because the 'like me, but different' tension created into our beings is never accurately portrayed in such unions. "It is the woman's 'similar-yet-different nature," Engelmann says, "that makes her the 'suitable helper' or 'companion' for the man."

And it is understanding what a woman was designed to be, beyond the cultural and societal mutterings of human declarations, that will enable even women themselves to understand what they want and need, far beyond the scope of a distorted and crippled feminist movement of equality. It is beyond the realm, in my mind, that women were created as equal partners; although physical and mental capabilities lie distinctly different between both sexes. The differences do not equate to secondary or subservience through domination but rather enhance and delight each balanced marriage as God intended.

Far beyond the distortion and misunderstanding given to Peter's declaration of this unique balance is the truth of his insight. "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." (1 Peter 3:7 NIV) As most theologians point out, this 'weakness' does not refer to moral stamina, strength of character, or even mental capacity but most likely to the medically proven physical strength. But, even that human truth excites and inflames the passionate rejection of feminists of a Godly design.

It is this misunderstanding and ignorance of this 'feminine design' that hasn't been "taken into consideration and [seriously] honored as [men] daily relate to the women in our lives" that have hampered our relationship with God, because we have amputated part of a balanced Godly design. Women have had to step into the gap created and serve against the purposed design; longing for the balance their souls crave.

In the quest to discover the answer to the question, we have to seriously look at how men relate in an considerate and honoring way to women; especially their wives and how the designed role of women have been distorted by the inactivity of men, the forced role of women to live the man's role, and the mess created because of it.

Why, if women demand equality with the sexes do they spend their time with their friends lamenting the lost 'manly man'?

A warrior should not fight the battle for the world against the fallen and broken design of the Enemy alone, and they aren't equipped to.......women are warriors too and uniquely designed to struggle in the fight with men, not against.

As Engelmann points out, far beyond the point of man being created from the dust of the earth, women were made.......... in God's image, also.

"So God created people in His own image; In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God blessed them and told them, 'Multiple and fill the earth and subdue it. Be Masters over the fish and the birds and all the animals."' (Genesis 1:27-28)

Both man and woman were created as image-bearers of God; one the warrior of 'creating life in chaos' and the other the warrior of 'relationship', i.e. enhancing life. It is far beyond a biological mandate, being a foundational balance of the empowerment of the creational mandate. Both man and woman are necessary for the subduing and ruling of creation, interrelationally, and yet designed to represent and play an unique role in its equal fulfillment. Both were made to represent God and, as many marriage counselors, programs, and studies show.......it is the godly design of marriage that shows us the balanced image of our God.

Engelmann points out that the word 'helper' isn't what it has been distorted to mean in today's society, that of a 'subjugation of one to another'. Ezar, the Hebrew word for 'helper' is used only six times in the Hebrew Old Testament, referring to God as a 'Mighty Warrior' except in the verse found in Genesis 2:18. God, in those other verses, comes to His people's aid in times of trouble and desperation in a warrior fashion, triumphing their needs.

Even in Ancient Middle Eastern culture, 'helper' didn't mean inferiority but exalted. It referred to a warrior, mighty and powerful, who came to the aid of the desperate with the ability to deliver them from the troubles they faced.

In that context, the woman being a 'helper' to Adam takes on a larger, deeper meaning; a fellow warrior who is uniquely designed and gifted to give "deep and engaging relationship" to Adam, who's greatest enemy was the loneliness that he experienced in the inferiority of animals (who weren't created bearing God's image) and the great superiority of God Himself.

Eve becomes, as Engelmann states, "a suitable relationship with an equal" that Adam desires in his loneliness. "A woman reflects God's heart for relationship," Engelmann continues, "and His hatred for loneliness."

And it is the human distortion of God that is created by the 'male superiority' and 'female inferiority' definition of worth that plagues society today as a generation raised on such sinful distortion comes of age and wonders who they are.....................

It is in this understanding that the complaints of Volpe and others about the scientific and medical differences between the sexes becomes understandable and even logical. A balanced design of a complexity that no human can recreate and only a human can fully enjoy.

What does a woman want?

Far beyond being part of the story of a man, or being treasured as a prize won….. A woman wants to live her heart; "invite and unite others in relationship ---and to enjoy meaning in life through connection with others."

Esteemed by a fellow warrior, a man, who acknowledges the beauty of the equality of their creation and honors the complexity of her feminine design; distinct and uniquely different….but necessary to the balance of life.

This is my take on a study given by Scott Engelmann, Spiritual Director of Awakened Hearts ministries, at the last M3 meeting on October 25th, 2008. The topic was "Understanding Women" and was given at the National City Bank in Troy, Michigan. You can obtain a copy of the talk thru the www.M3ministries.org or www.ahmministries.org.