day no. 16,715: man your post

Nahum 3:13

Behold, your troops

are women in your midst.

The gates of your land

are wide open to your enemies;

fire has devoured your bars.

Soldiers should be men. A good soldier is a good man soldiering well. A good man is not a woman. He is a good man because he fights for women. He leverages his strength on her behalf. He fights so that she doesn't have to. When men act like women in war, it is to their shame. Their women are ravaged when they fail to play the man . How much more so when they send their women to the front lines?

Isaiah 19:16

In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the LORD of hosts shakes over them.

When men become like women, the whole earth trembles and shakes. When the stalwart are shaky, what hope do the shaken share? Men must man their posts. The posts must be guarded by guys and those bros must be bonafide blokes.

Jeremiah 51:30

The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting; they remain in their strongholds; their strength has failed; they have become women; her dwellings are on fire; her bars are broken.

Men were made to be shields. They are to be types of saviors who place themselves between the danger and their beloved. They are to go out front in order to bear the blow. When they hole up and hide, there is no hope. 

"Men are better than gates." — J.R.R. Tolkien

Gates are best when they keep the wicked away and protect the righteous within. But gates are worthless without men. Someone has to man the post to open them to needed commerce and close them to unwanted conflict. 

Nehemiah 1:3

And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”

A town without walls is in trouble. A city without gates is either a ghetto or soon to become one. A city without walls is undefined. It is impossible to know where it ends or begins. Without gates it cannot welcome grace. Without gates it cannot block the base. 

Proverbs 25:28

A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.

We end where we began: men being men. A man must be meek. That is he must be strong and under control. If you are not strong, you cannot be meek. If there is no strength to restrain, it is just weakness, not meekness. A good man good at being a man can control himself and be entrusted with the task of keeping others safe. He can be expected to control the wickedness from without that threatens his city for he is well practiced in protecting himself from the threats of sin to his soul.