day no. 15,104: the talking dead

Our traditions are our opportunity to speak directly to our remote descendants. The inheritance we hand off to our children is not limited to finances and investments, but memories. Memories are the only way to take time with you and traditions are reliable ways to make memories. Quality time is a product of quantity time. The more you spend time together, the more likely it is that some of that time will be counted "a good time." Traditions are intentional efforts at making the best use of the time you set aside. In addition to spending a good deal of time with people, you can make some of that intentional through liturgy and family tradition. This is an inheritance you can provide for your family which allows you not only to influence them, but their children's children.

"A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants." - T. B. Macaulay

If you do not look back and attempt to see the tapestry of your story in those who have gone before you, you won't give much effort or thought to ensuring your mark will make a difference one way or another in the future. You will produce what you have patterned: indifference to one's ancestors and your life's work will end being to your grandchildren what your grandparents' is now to you: like it never happened.

“Tradition is the democracy of the dead. It means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes: our ancestors.” - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Traditions are your attempt to vote in future decisions. The more you establish traditions, the more what mattered to you will matter to your progeny. You can vote in future elections in the form of present influence and intentionality. 

"If we have the opportunity to speak to our descendants, and we do, then I want to tell them that the joy of the Lord is our strength" - Douglas Wilson, God Rest Ye Merry

If you want your descendants to be Chestertonian Calvinists, and you should, live like one right now and establish traditions in keeping with laughter and logic, hilarity and high church, silliness and solemnity. God is the most serious thing in the world, which means you are the laughingstock of the universe. Take yourself lightly, take your faith seriously. Fix your eyes on God and let them be the windows through which duchenne smiles see the world.

Nehemiah 8:10
Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Eat the fat, drink the sweet, do not be grieved, be joyful, the Lord is our strength. That is an inheritance worth serving at your table and sharing with your children's children's children.

That is a vote worth casting for generations to come.

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Edmund Burke

day no. 15,103: a good book rewards return visits

C.S. Lewis in An Experiment in Criticism proposed the test of a good book is that it rewards return visits.

Based on this, I've began in recent years to build a library of books that I read each and every year. I read new books as well and the good ones make their way into the re-read library, but the idea is to get to know a few really good books really well instead of a lot of decent books decently.

Here are a few of the permanent fixtures on my re-read library shelf:

The Bible - Holy Spirit
Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton
The Three Philosophies of Life - Peter Kreeft
Just Do Something - Kevin DeYoung
The Plan of Salvation - B.B. Warfield
Pilgrim's Progress parts 1 and 2 - John Bunyan
The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves - C.S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
Future Men - Doug Wilson
My Utmost for His Highest - Oswald Chambers
How to Be Free From Bitterness - Jim Wilson
Beowulf - Seamus Haney
Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication, 1: Warfighting - U.S. Marine Corps

"Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed."  -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students: To Workers with Slender Apparatus

day no. 15,102: without black and white, there is no gray

"The vaguer the problem to be solved, the more resolute must we be in seeking points of departure from which we can begin to lay a course. " — Julian Corbett

The more gray the problem appears to be, the more work one must do to discover the black and whites producing the gray. Never forget that without black and white, there is no gray. 

Adiaphora may appear to be without handles, but something cannot be morally complicated without the existence and presence of fixed moral principles. If there are no principles, it could not be complicated, because it would not matter. Things that don't matter are not complicated. If there are principles, but they are not in play in this particular instance, revisit scenario #1: not complicated because again, it doesn't matter.

The vaguer the difficulty, the more diligent we need to be to mine for the definites. If it is complicated, you can be assured your efforts will be rewarded by golden foundations somewhere underneath all the muck. 

Proverbs 24:3-6
By wisdom a house is built,
and by understanding it is established;
by knowledge the rooms are filled
with all precious and pleasant riches.
A wise man is full of strength,
and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

day no. 15,101: intent and context

"Effective execution of strategy requires an understanding of both its intent and its context" -- MCDP 1-1

In order to carry out orders, you need to understand what principles underlie the command and what parameters are in view.

Intent and context help define, "why" and "to what extent?"

The command is communicated in simple "whats", but effective execution of the strategy requires over-communicating vision beforehand in the form of the "whys" and "to what extents."

God's Word provides foundations and fences in order to clarify intent and context so that timeless truths can inform timely tactics.

day no. 15,100: plans > panache

"Battlefield brilliance seldom rescues a bad strategy." -- MCDP 1-1: Strategy

A great athlete on one side can often be overcome by a great coach on the other.

Good plans defeat gifted panache 9 times out of 10.

Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.

day no. 15,099: MCDP 1-1: Strategy

"The nation that draws too great a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." - Thucydides

God calls men to be smart and to take our masculine role as a sages seriously. He also calls men to be brave and to take our masculine role as a saviors seriously. We are to meditate on God's Word and mediate between the danger and the things we love.

We are not to be cowards or fools. We are called to be wise warriors, smart soldiers, academic assassins, lethal logicians and strong scholars.

Proverbs 24:5-6
A wise man is full of strength,
and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

day no. 15,098: Bunyan on backsliding

Bunyan's 9 stages of backsliding as detailed in Pilgrim's Progress

(1) First, they withdraw their thoughts as much as possible from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come.

(2) Then by degrees they give up their self-discipline, such as private prayer, curbing their lusts, watching their conduct, regretting sin, and the like.

(3) Then they shun the company of lively, warmhearted Christians.

(4) After that they grow negligent of public duty, such as hearing and reading the Word of God, attending meetings, and the like.

(5) Then they begin to find fault with Christians, picking holes in the coats of the godly (because of some weakness which they fancy they have seen in them), and casting aspersions on the good name of disciples behind their back.

(6) Then they begin to associate with worldly, loose, and evil-minded people. They also give way to carnal, lustful, and immoral practice in secret; and seek to find such practice in those who are counted true, that they may say they are their example.

(7) After this they play with sin openly.

(8) Then being hardened, they show themselves as they are: downright wicked.

(9) Now, being bogged down again in the gulf of misery, they perish forever in their own deceiving unless a miracle of grace prevents it.

day no. 15,097: you can't fake strength

Transvestism takes 1st class women and turns them into 5th rate men and takes 2nd class men and turns them into 3rd rate women. Yes, I too noticed that the math does not add up. Why? Women are less adept at pulling off manhood than men are at pulling off femininity.

What? Is this just another version of the "men are better at everything" shtick? No. Men are not better at everything. Women are actually better than men... at being women. They are made for it and achieve it better than men do. Which is why men cannot become 1st class women. So why the differentiation on the opening math? Why does a 1st class woman only make a 5th rate man whereas a 2nd rate man can make a 3rd rate woman?

Well, first off, being 5th rate or 3rd rate is functionally equivalent. They're both functional failures. That is the point. But I did provoke the point by punctuating it by my math. So, I concede your point in pointing that out. The bottom line is that it is more difficult to fake strength than it is to fake beauty. Many a forger can fake a great piece of art, but no amount of forgery can create flex where there isn't any. Show muscles look good but are good for nothing muscular. Yet even show muscles are more easily achieved by men than by women. That sort of cuts to the core of it though, right? Show muscles can be achieved by women, just not as easily or ubiquitously. But strength is not just in the observation of muscle, but in the application of strength. Men who look like they could lift a house rarely can, whereas men who look like a house can often lift whatever they want.

But I digress. Man was made from the ground for the ground. He was made to be strong and to apply that strength to his work. Woman was made from man for the man. She was given strengths corresponding to her task of tending to the one who tends the ground. Thus, her skills are soft skills like comfort, listening, nutrition, patience, healing, beautifying, etc... And his skills are hard skills like lifting, digging, pushing, shoving, moving, imposing, straining, etc...

So if this is the case, why are men better at pretending to be women than women are at pretending to be men? Because it is easier to look like a woman than it is to be a man. When men aim at femininity, they aim at the exterior aesthetic. When women aim at masculinity, they aim at its essence. They don't want to just look like men, they want to be men. But looking like something is more easily pulled off than being something else entirely.

So it isn't the case that being a woman is easier than being a man, but rather that looking like a woman is easier than being a man. It is so hard, in fact, that even many men don't pull it off. They remain lifelong Peter Pans. Boys, but not men.

When a man attempts to adorn himself as the glory of man, he almost always, without exception aims at natural, obvious, creational femininity: long hair, soft edges, long eyelashes, make up, low cut blouses and high-heeled shoes, etc... All of these attempts to fake being feminine only highlight my point that God has revealed what gender distinctives belong where. A cross-dressing man does not adapt a lumberjack lesbian persona because no one in that scenario would know he was cross dressing and that's sort of the point, right? 

So when a woman attempts to cross dress as a man, she aims high as well. She aims for a man, but being a man is more than just a uniform, it is meeting the requirements of wearing the uniform. You can't fake strength. God has created distinctions and right out of the gate in Genesis 1, that is what we see. God and not God. Light and not light. Water and not water. Male and not male. These are equal in value and dignity and the standards over them are equal. So a man is distinct as a woman, but is held to the same standards of conduct. The world gets this, not surprisingly, exactly backwards. They erase the distinctions on the front end saying there is no difference between men and women as a justification for forcing young ladies to dawn military garb, but once in, they are not held to the same standards as their male counterparts. Their weakness is accommodated for as though there was real weakness present on the back end after completely ignoring said weakness on the front end in abolishing the differences of maleness and femaleness. So you end up with female firefighters who can't fight fires and the effeminatti applauding and congratulating themselves for their high achievement. They got her through the same front door by ushering her through the process using different house rules. Like I said, ass backwards. God would have them use a different door altogether, ya know the one with the figure wearing a long dress. And if for some reason they walked through the wrong door, the one with the arms and legs sans dress, they would be held to the standard clearly marked on that door.

Now it should be noted that no man can successfully pull off beauty the way a woman can. This was stated clearly in the opening math equation. Men make 3rd rate women, at best. But they come closer to capturing beauty than women do at capturing strength. Man is made from dust and woman was made from man. Woman thus returns to dust when she dies since she is made from man who is made from dust. But man is the glory of God and woman is the glory of man. Man has something in common with God that woman does not. Woman is out of man, man is out of dust directly. Thus the leap from dust to man is a greater initial leap than from man to woman. Again, this is not a statement of value, but of order. God made man something that He did not make woman. He made mankind to be represented by the man. Woman can be arranged under the heading of man, whereas man cannot be arranged under the head of woman although from here until eternity he is forever connected to the uterus of the woman. So if man is the glory of God and woman the glory of man, it makes sense that women would have a more difficult time copying the glory of God than man would copying the glory of man.  This isn't a degradation of the glory of man, but rather a statement about the magnificence of the glory of God. Men are better at applying themselves to the glory they were created to embody and the same goes for women. No one is better at being a man, than a man. No one is better at being a woman, than a women. 

day no. 15,096: if you pick up one end of the stick...

"Principles don't react to anything. Principles don't die. They do not change. Principles always have natural consequences attached to them. 'If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other.'" - Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Principles are inescapable. So inescapable, in fact, that they are even beyond the typical inescapable equation of "which?" whether than "if." They are so fundamental, there is not even the question of "which?" There is not a smorgasbord of principles. There are only the principles we have, provided by God: indestructible, unchangeable, indifferent, persistent, and inescapable.

Either you get in line with principles or you are out of line. There are no other lines. There is a narrow path upon which principles rule and a wide path where they don't which ends in destruction because it has no foundation.

"If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other."

And conversely, if you do not pick up one end of the stick, you do not hold the other.

day no. 15,095: self-pity is pride in the heart of the weak

"Self-pity is pride in the heart of the weak" - Mark Arant

Pride is often imagined as a swollen sense of self manifested in bravado and assertion. But pride can just as easily manifest in timidity and seclusion. Pride is in love with itself. This typically is observed by those attempting to get others to love them as much as they already do. Hence, the boasts and an applause sign accompany them everywhere in every conversation.

But because pride is in love with itself, it can also take the form of attempting to get others to congratulate them by running themselves down. In this form, pride manipulates people not through self-congratulatory panache, but through self-deprecating pettiness. 

Strong people assert themselves and impose their love of self upon those around them, using their strength to get the audience to agree. Weak people insist upon feeling sorry for themselves because others do not applaud them as much as they wish they did. Weak people melt when their bravado doesn't work on others or even worse, when they can't seem to congratulate themselves for high achievement. So instead, they congratulate themselves for their humility and expect others to do the same.

Self-pity is never content with the pity it receives from itself. Because it is rooted in pride, it needs other people to notice and insists that they agree.

day no. 15,094: effeminacy will not be suffered forever

1 Corinthians 6:9
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind

"Nature and Reason command that nothing uncomely, nothing effeminate, nothing lascivious be done or thought." - Cicero

Nature itself taught us that effeminacy is a thing of naught, but supernatural revelation came along and came straight through the front door and said with words what nature had said by witness, "Effeminacy is a sin in the sight of God." It may be present in this life as a result of sin, but it will not inherit the life to come.

day no. 15,093: treat Christian men like Christian men

"Treat Christian men like Christian men; expect them to live on Christian principles; and they will strive to walk worthily of their Christian profession." - B.B. Warfield

Christians should be treated like Christians. It should be assumed that they want to do what God has commanded and avoid what God has forbidden. It should also be assumed that Christians are a category of person. One does not cease to be human because they become a new creation. A Christian is reborn, but they are a reborn person. And people fall short. So Christians should be assumed to be struggling with the fleshly desires of their old man and the Spiritual desires of their new birth. Christians by the grace of God and the presence of His Spirit, want to do what God says, but part of them still resists.

Men should be treated like men. It should be assumed that they want to be respected. Men want other people's respect by design, but the desire to be respectable is not always a given. Men want to be honored among men, but they don't always desire to be honorable. In other words, men do not mind being flattered, until they do. At some point, the heart of man cannot be satisfied with empty applause. At some point, a man will want to have earned the credentials he proudly displays. 

We need to treat Christian men like Christian men. They should be given high and lofty standards and required to aim for them. Jesus did not come saying, "Be adequate as your Father is adequate," He said, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." That is the aim of a Christian man, nothing short of divine perfection.

This is not pursued in order to obtain salvation, but in order to prove salvation. This manly effort makes one's calling and election sure and allows the man, in his failures, to rest his head in confidence that he is headed to a place where failure will finally be defeated because it's defeat was declared by Jesus on the Cross when He shouted, "It is finished!"

day no. 15,092: the besetting sin of younger men

Titus 2:6
Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

Young men need self-control. They are passionate and powerful and without self-control, they have the ability to dominate and destroy the world around them. They can impose their will upon the rest of the world through their youthful resilience and strength. If they are not under the submission of any outside control which leads them to impose upon themselves certain restrictions, they will unleash a fury of havoc on the world around them.

Young men lack a sense of proportion. Without self-control, they do not resist their urges by category or by intensity.  Self-control eliminates certain categories of activity altogether and determines what level to crank the volume on categories which contain permissible activities.

Without self-control, young men do not stop themselves from doing wrong.
Without self-control, even when doing well, they often go too far or too soon.

In other words, they are good at being bad or they do what good they do badly.

day no. 15,091: sophisticatti

There is an ongoing tension to have good taste and to have good manners. The more you teach your palate to discern the difference between 2 buck chuck and a bottle of $100 wine, the more likely you will suffer the temptation to think yourself better than those who don't mind 2 buck chuck, or even worse... prefer it. The difficulty of enjoying Bud Light may creep upon the one who has developed a refined taste for craft beer.

The sophisticatti will pressure you to take a stand against the common man and his macro brewed, back wood comforts.

Common does not have to mean lowest common denominator per se. It can mean the highest common denominator.

Do not buy into the lie of cool. Cool shaming only works if you desire to be cool. But cool by whose standard and in whose eyes? More often than not, if you take the time to ask as a Christian, you will discover the source inadequate to the task of validating your existence or tastes.

day no. 15,090: inequity in iniquity

Q: Are all sins equal? Yes and No

All sins are equally sufficient to demand God's wrath. 

James 2:10
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 

Any sin is good enough to disqualify someone from perfection and if the goal is perfection, any sin, regardless of category or intensity requires a verdict of "guilty."

But not all require equal amounts of wrath.

Imagine taking an exam. If you miss any of the 100 questions, you cannot obtain 100%. But imagine the questions are not weighted equally. The true/false section were 10 and worth 1 point each, but the essay section contained 3 questions each worth 10 points. To miss a true/false question will cost you 1 point, but to botch an essay will cost you 10. Missing either would prevent you from reaching perfection, but missing particular ones would determine how far from perfect you ended up being.

1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 

Any sin may be weighted differently without being unequal in its ability to prevent anyone from being justified by works.

day no. 15,089: the democracy of the dead

Proverbs 22:28
Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.

Proverbs 23:10-11
Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless,
for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.

"Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.” - G.K. Chesterton

Do the dead get a seat at the table or not?
Do the traditions of our forefathers matter enough to allow them a turn to speak?
And if they do get a seat and chance to speak, how much weight do their words hold?
How much gravity do their governing principles gain for them in present discussion?
Do you give the dead a place in your personal decision making?
If so, how much say do they get?
Are you able to dismiss their landmarks without considering why they put them where they did and why they put anything anywhere at all?

Do not be too quick to dismiss something that meant something to someone just because they happen to be deceased. Moving landmarks is not to be avoided without exception, but it should be an exception nevertheless.

day no. 15,088: every church is like a little Eden

Revelation 21:22-27
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Every Sunday when we load into the Kraken, we recite our marching orders for the morning...

Q: Where are we going?
A: to church

Q: And why do we go to church?
A: to worship our God with our people

Every church is like a little Eden, a garden in a vast wilderness, a place where God says, "Yes" everywhere you look and the "No's" are so small in number you'd have to search for them.

Sundays are practice for the new earth. Church is a place where we stand in God's presence, sit under His Word, sing His praises, feast in His presence, proclaim what's He done and express our gratitude. This is merely a pattern of what we will be doing forever.

Every church is a world within a world, a new earth planted inside the old earth. A tame little place of peace inside a wild world of warfare.

Church is a place to receive rations in order to return to the battlefield refreshed and reminded of what we're fighting for and how to fight in the meantime. 

day no. 15,087: homiletical help, week 7: not just any words will do --> CLARITY

Good morning men of God,

Preachers are not first performers, but proclaimers. A preacher must consider HOW to say what needs to be said, but before that a preacher must consider WHAT must be said. People may prefer a well spoken message to a well thought out one, but  our standard for a good message is not whether or not people liked it, but rather did God like it? 

For us a good message is a good man speaking well. But we'd rather have a good man speak poorly than a bad man speak well. Oration is an ingredient when preaching is your task, but it isn't the substance, it's the spice added for taste, not the main course, but the salt that makes the nourishment more palatable.

This week, let's talk about CLARITY: which words to say what

COLOSSIANS 4:3-4
Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak

We must clearly be saying something and clearly not be saying something else. We must leave no room for confusion in what we affirm and what we deny. Our denials and affirmations must be a crystal clear as possible since those who actually hang on our words are compelled to affirm or deny in their own hearts and heads what they heard us proclaim.
We must struggle to make the mysterious known clearly.

This week as you prepare for your next message, think about the muddle the points you're trying to make could result in. Where could there be confusion? What could be better worded as to avoid creating confusion? Be clear and concise. When it is pointed, perhaps say it twice. 

Let's be clear, brothers. And let us pray for open doors and clear presentations once admitted through them,

Your brother in Christ

day no. 15,086: life happens to boys; men happen to life.

Paige is reading Boyhood and Beyond with the kids as part of their morning basket for homeschool and was relaying to me how she is enjoying it. She mentioned this idea that I wanted to take note of and expand a bit upon...

"Many men live one step behind life's events"

Many men assume they will be who they need to be when they need to be it without doing anything now to bring about the likelihood of that outcome.  Many men get serious about how to work only after they already have a job. Others look for books on being a husband only after they are married and discover things aren't just going as well as they assumed they would. Then others buy parenting books only after they have children who are rebelling. Most men live a day late and a dollar short.

This is because most grown up males are boys in their thinking, reasoning and communicating.

1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Boys do not become men simply because enough time happens to them and forces them into it. A boy can stay a boy as long as he likes, although he will have to navigate shaving and other side effects biology imposes upon him.

The way of a boy is reactive. Boys do what needs to be done only when and if it becomes so difficult to continue doing something the old, familiar way that something must be done: like counselling, parenting books, marriage seminars, etc... Boys aren't interested in something unless it's on fire.

The way of a man is proactive. Men do what needs to be done by preparing for what they foresee before it happens. At this point, I like to employ Sun Tzu's quote, "the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." A man does the hard work of imposing upon himself the difficulties that attend living his priorities before they catch on fire. 

The way of a boy is possessed in passivity. At the end of the day, he would prefer it if he could do nothing and have everyone else off of his back. But life happens and forces him to do more than he original intended and he feels the need to acquiesce to the pressures of other people's priorities... eventually in order to get them off of his back. He prefers the peace of passivity to the war of actually asserting himself. He only works in order to get out from under the weight of responsibility imposed upon him.

The way of a man is inhabited in initiative. At the end of the day, he would prefer to do something wrong than not do anything. He prefers his way of doing something to others way of not doing anything. This initiative is attended by push back from others and forces that resist being acted upon, but the man knows what he believes and why he believes it and gives his strength to impose his will upon that for which he is held responsible. He doesn't work in order to get out from under the weight of responsibility, he works in order to support the weight he has gladly assumed and seeks to use its gravity to impose his will upon it by enveloping it into his atmosphere and signing his name to the deed.

In short, life happens to boys; men happen to life.

Life as usual is worldliness. It is thoughtless, godless movement downstream. Life without intention is simply drift. It still moves, but it carries dead sticks and fish along wherever it goes. Life in this scenario is the normal course of events uninterrupted by any other imposition. What constitutes daily life is largely an unending chain of intermittent urgencies.

Urgency drives the boy where it likes and his boyish wisdom and warfare are powerless to resist its pressure. Importance drives the man to impose his will upon his time, his talents, his treasures and points them where he has decided he wants to go. 

Things happens because they want to and one must respond or be entirely acted upon by them. This is quintessential boyishness. Life happens to you and decides for you. A man refuses to be acted upon by any and every thing. He has ideas about where he'd like to be and what end he'd like to see, so he reacts to what he is forced to react to, but he also makes decisions and lives in light of his priorities in such a way as to force life to react to him. He is  a force to reckoned with, not a dead stick to be acted upon. 

Boys fear life.
Life fears men.

day no. 15,085: sleep well for somewhere violent men are awake and on our side

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell

The following was the opening gambit from the featured speaker at the 244th Navy/Marine Corps Birthday Ball in Mizzou's Memorial Hall we attended earlier this evening (11/1/19)

"How are you doing today? Great. That's good. Ask me how I'm doing. How am I doing? I'm great, thanks for asking. Ask me why. Why am I so great today? I woke up in America."

Freedom is not free and the land of the free is 100% secure because 1% of its men risk their lives for our sakes. They place themselves between the thing they love and that which would threaten its existence. They do not fight fueled by hatred of everything out there, but by the love of everything we have here.

day no. 15,084: feelings are powerful apologists

Philippians 3:17-19

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

Feelings are powerful apologists.

Bellies belie reality. They provide truth claims about the world around them by looking to the feelings welled up within them. They look in in order to look out. Ultimate reality is inside and to be imposed upon the world. 

The Christian looks up to God as the Ultimate reality. From Him comes wisdom to be imposed down to my innermost feelings. My feelings are called then to submit to His imposition. Ultimate reality is outside and to be imposed upon my inner man.

Enemies of the cross begin with their feelings, celebrate their shame, set their minds on the world and end in destruction.

Christians have feelings because Christians are people. Everyone has feelings. But Christians must not put their feelings first. Christians, before they are anything else, are those who put Christ first. Feelings then are to be in submission to Christ. Inordinate affections are to be placed into proper order, not celebrated in whatever disorder we find them. Having them doesn't excuse them being wherever they are found.

Feelings are false prophets.

day no. 15,083: not just strong... stronger!

Proverbs 20:29
The glory of young men is their strength,
but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.

God made men to be strong and all men know it. No one needs to convince a man that it would be a glorious thing to be strong and mighty. Conversely, every man despises the idea of being considered weak. It is a man's glory to be strong. Strength is admired and desired. Men like competitions because they test strength. They are concrete ways to gauge who is stronger. You do not have to convince a man to want to win. Those who refuse to play often do so because of cowardice. They are afraid to lose, so they refuse to play. In other words, if they can't win, what's the point? This further confirms the reality they attempting to ignore: men were made to want to win. So much so, that when a man imagines he can't win, he pretends he never wanted to play in the first place. Or in worst case scenarios, he convinces himself that not playing was the actual test of strength... and he won that!

1 Peter 3:7
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

God did not only make men strong, He made them stronger than women. So men are not just strong inherently, they are also strong comparatively.  They are not just strong in themselves, but strong next to their counterparts. God not only made men strong, He made them stronger.

God did not do this so that they could congratulate themselves for winning arm wrestling matches with the fairer sex. The boy who pats himself on the back for dominating a woman in a feat of strength should expect shade from other men, not accolades. To flex against the fairer sex is to be boring and redundant.

"Oh, you're stronger and you have the biceps to prove it? Asked and answered. Who didn't already know that, bruh? You haven't won anything, you've lost your mind. You will not be receiving a punch on your man card, but a punch to your thick skull."

Being strong means you can win the arm wrestling match, but it also means you don't imagine yourself strong only on the basis of winning arm wrestling matches with women.

So... what is strength for then? If it is a given and not something that needs to be proven in the context of relationships with the fairer sex, what is it given for?

It is for guiding, steering, directing, leading, driving toward an intended end provided by God, performed by the man.

If there is a tug of war over the steering wheel, the man can win. So in cars where the woman is driving, it is not because she overpowered him, but because he abdicated his power. This means the direction your family is going is your fault. She may be driving and steering it to places you don't want to go, but if she's driving, it's because you're weak. You could take the wheel back. You should take the wheel back. It is why you were given strength. 

This, of course, assumes the responsibility of knowing that you need to be careful about where you steer. To revisit the initial point, the goal is not to grab the wheel away from your wife simply to show her that you can. Of course, you can. You're a man. God made you strong. You never needed to prove that. What you needed to prove was your willingness to choose a destination, your confidence in directing the course towards it and your patience in enduring the difficulties of going anywhere. The distance between where you are and where you'd like to go must be conquered and it will not go gentle into that dark night. Will you?

day no. 15,082: salvation and submission

"Sin is man's refusal to submit to God. The Gospel is a message of Jesus'' submission in order to redeem us from our lack of it." - Bryan Winchester

Jesus was not made inferior by His submission, He was elevated in light of it. In this, He shows that God keeps His promises to raise up those who lower themselves. 

1 Peter 5:5b-6
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you.

Jesus humbled Himself by being lifted up on a cross.
He was exalted by being lifted up from the grave.

day no. 15,081: do unto others as you've had done unto you

CHRISTIAN MEN ARE A CONQUERED PEOPLE
Jesus has conquered us, claimed us as His own and is cultivating us into His image. Jesus looks out over each and every man and says, in fact, "Mine! The earth and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein." And we are better off for being His. Because He has conquered us, He has cultivated us to our benefit. 

Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

WE ARE THEN CALLED TO DO IN THE WORLD WHAT HE HAS DONE IN US
Jesus conquered us and cultivated us and then commands us to conquer the world and cultivate it for His glory, our neighbor's good and our personal growth.

day no. 15,080: I want to be more like you

1 Corinthians 11:1
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

For a man, a higher compliment can hardly be imagined than another man saying, "I want to be more like you."

It requires a man to acknowledge his lack and another man's plenty. It forces a man to admit his weakness and acknowledge another's strength.

This begins, for the Christian, with God. In order to be a Christian, a man must look up and say, "I want to be like you," implying, "Who I am is not going to cut it."

The man looks up and confesses his lack in light of God's plenty and admits his weakness in view of God's strength.

That man then looks around to other men who are also looking up to God, men who are further up and further in, men more mature and more like Jesus than them. He then says to them, "I want to be more like you, because you also want to be more like Jesus and you are more like Him than I am."

Faith and following, dedication and discipleship take place in the context of looking ahead of you and confessing, "I want to be like you." 

Ephesians 5:1-2
Be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

"God exhibits His glory to us for our imitation and expects the sight of the beauty of holiness in Him to beget in us an inextinguishable longing to be like Him." - B.B. Warfield

There is no greater currency a man can deal in than respect. Respect is communicated in imitation. Every man begins by wanting to be his own man, but if he is to be a Christian man, he must be reborn as a man who wants to be like the men who are more like the Man, Christ Jesus, than himself.

day no. 15,079: private, personal and public

Luke 2:52
Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

God has called men to grow and increase privately in wisdom, personally in stature and publicly in favor with God and other people.

Wisdom concerns the inner person.
Stature concerns the outer person.
Favor concerns the interpersonal.

Wisdom looks inside the body.
Stature looks to the body.
Favor looks outside to everybody else.

Wisdom is private.
Stature is personal.
Favor is public.

day no. 15,078: accrue coulds, pursue shoulds

The man of God lacks no opportunity. The more manly and Godly he is, the more opportunity presents itself. 

Men should accrue opportunities.

But the man of God should not say, "yes," to more than he is able to bless. Which means he must know what he is trying to do and what helps him do that and what doesn't.

Men should pursue priorities.

The more manly and godly a man is, the more opportunities he will need to say, "No," to.
The more opportunities he accrues, the more priorities must be pursued.

Accrue opportunity
Pursue priority

Accrue coulds,
Pursue shoulds.

day no. 15,077: belief speaks

2 Corinthians 4:13
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak

Belief opens its mouth.

The Psalmist believed... and so he spoke.

Those who believe now have the same spirit that believed then and it ends in the same way with mouths opened.

Belief speaks.

Always has... always will.

day no. 15,076: an entire world set before us by God to be dominated

Initiative is the essence of masculinity.

There is an entire world out there set before us by God to be dominated  You with me? Some of the first words of God recorded for us say it this way...

Genesis 1:26-28
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

    So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Some of the last words of Jesus recorded for us...

Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Initiative is the essence of masculinity.

There is an entire world out there set before us by God to be dominated  Again, I ask, are you with me?