Big boys don't cry... enough

I was thinking yesterday about how there's a real call at the moment for young christian males to break the stereotype of the emotional, pathetic, push-over, Christian man. We're raising up a generation of real men, who are not afraid to be bold about their faith, who are willing to fight the good fight for Christ and for their friends who do not know Him.

This is all well and good (I myself feel a particular calling to raising up these real men) however, I also fear that we could throw the balance the other way, and have a bunch of Christian men who are up for fighting for Christ and get caught up in it all, but they take on the image that 'macho' men portray, which is that showing emotion is a weakness.

God calls us Christian men to be leaders; strong in Him, godly, prayerful, unashamed of our faith, wise, humble... Strength. It's a funny one. When some one tells you of a strong man, the first thing we think of is a weightlifter. But I believe (and I would being as lacking in muscle as I am!) that true strength is not found only in our physical ability. If we need to stand strong to opposition, or hold on strong to a belief, a cause, we need to be strong in ourselves and strong in Him, the one who this is all about. Jesus.


We all go through tough times, it's a fact. Stuff hurts us, it's a fact. There will be times when we feel wounded on the inside and if we are really going to walk with Christ we need to be able to deal with that with Him. We need to offer our hurt to Him, share our frustrations with Him. And yes, sometimes that will mean a few tears may escape. In my opinion, the worst thing you can do in these situations is bury that hurt, bury those tears. If we do not face up to our wounds, let out the hurt and offer ourselves to God to be healed, we will become more and more crippled in ourselves.

I also firmly believe that we need emotion to drive us to do God's work. Without our emotions, we would not feel for the huge number of people on this planet who, because they do not know Jesus, will not spend eternity in heaven with God, but will spend eternity somewhere they really do not want to be. We would not feel for those in unjust situations, so not being driven to social action. We would not be compelled to help anyone. We could not love.

So as men of God, let us not get so caught up in being 'real' men; and lets start being real men.