The Hunger of the Masculine Heart for Impact

David Murrow, author of the book, Why Men Hate Going to Church advises church leaders:

If you want to capture the heart of a ma—especially a younger man—you have to offer him a shot at greatness. Men will not invest themselves wholeheartedly in any endeavor that does not offer this possibility. Every man wants to be a hero, to become a great man. Boys do not dream of sitting in a cubicle; they dream of slaying the dragon, rescuing the princess, and absconding with the treasure. My boyhood fantasy was to catch the winning pass in the Super Bowl. I can’t tell you how many times I stretched out my arms and fell across my bed, hauling in that game winner as the crowd went wild in the stands.

Isn’t it sinful for a man to want to be great? We are created for God’s glory NOT OUR OWN. But let’s dig further. God promised greatness to two OT patriarchs. In Genesis 12:2, God said to Abraham, I will bless you and make your name great. In 1 Samuel 7:9, God said to David, Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. Would God appeal to a sinful, self-centered impulse in these OT greats? Moreover,Jesus, himself appealed to men’s desire to be great and showed them how. In Mark 10 When Jesus noticed his disciples arguing about who was greatest, he said to them, Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. Notice that he did not rebuke them for wanting to be great. I believe that wanting to be great identifies a man’s longing to have significance. He wants his heart to be captured by a task that ultimately matters; he is repulsed by the idea of wasting his life. He wants to discover a heart-capturing mission that will demand the best from him, give that best effort, and succeed in his mission.

Both the creation account of Adam in Genesis 1 and God’s placement of Adam in the garden (Genesis 2) to cultivate it point to the fact that Adam is created to have impact. In Genesis 1 God said to Adam and Eve, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion. Let’s think about these 5 commands. God designed humans so that obeying the first 3 brings great pleasure. Being fruitful, multiplying and filling the earth with little image bearers, is enormously pleasurable through having sex and experiencing the joy of having little ones. It would make sense, therefore, in a similar way to hardwire humans to find pleasure in commands 4 and 5, subdue the earth, and have dominion. To subdue the earth, and exercise dominion mean, to conquer, to bring under control, to gain or win by overcoming obstacles. We are designed to find pleasure in conquering, in winning, in overcoming obstacles.

This characteristic of humans seems especially true of Adam because he is also  told by God that he is placed in the garden for the purpose of IMPACTING it.  The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to WORK it (Gen 2:15).  The Hebrew word, translated work it in the ESV, is avad, which means to cultivate, to develop the potential of, to cause to flourish. Adam’s unique masculine calling is to spend his energy impacting those around him, developing the potential that God has developed into the humans around him, his wife, his children, his neighbor, and develop the potential built into the earth. As Jesus explained to the twelve being great means spending ourselves so that others prosper, being a slave of all.

Men are doers. Men find pleasure by overcoming whatever obstacle lies in their way. That is why men love challenges—overcoming them brings pleasure. Mountains are obstacles in our path waiting to be climbed. Problems are obstacles to be overcome, waiting to be solved. Opponents are obstacles to winning, waiting to be vanquished. Undeveloped potential in our wife and kids is an obstacle to their fulfillment waiting to be unleashed. Past records of accomplishment are obstacles to our further grow, so we determine to surpass them. Overcoming whatever obstacles lie in the way of flourishing, brings satisfaction to our masculine souls. But sin has corrupted this good design.

How Has Sin Corrupted Our Calling to Impact the World Around Us

• By fostering passivity. Instead of exercising dominion over our homes, we go along to get along until there is a fire we need to put out.
• By fostering laziness. Instead of striving to present my bride to Christ as spiritually beautiful, I take her for granted.
• By fostering idleness. Instead of being “bringing up my children in the way they should go” (as commanded), I watch my children grow up being shaped by others.
• By fostering apathy for the lost. Instead of realizing that God has surrounded me with lost folks to impact for Christ, I never quite get around to doing that.
• By increasing my anger. God’s curse upon the ground because of Adam’s sin means that reaching every good goal to flourish is often frustrated. Frustration with obstacles that block our goals is a frequent cause of anger.
• By fostering workaholism. Success feels so good that it can easily become our God, driving men to have to achieve, and invest too little in their relationships.
• By being controlling. If my spiritual success, (i.e. reputation as a Christian) depends on my children’s behavior, I will be overly harsh and demanding.
• By fostering a complaining heart. The goals that enable me to have an impact can take center stage, instead of exhibiting Christ-like character, which can’t develop apart from irritations and trials

Five Ways Christ Wants Us to Impact Our Worlds

1. Set a standard of excellence in your work. J.R.R. Tolkien called man, made in God’s image a “sub-creator.” He saw the process of “sub-creation” as a way for creatures to express the divine image in them. Through our work, we are created to be creative and productive, imitating our Creator. Work in different forms is mentioned over 800 times in the Bible, more than all the terms used for worship, music, praise, and singing combined. That is what we were created to do (God’s Purpose in Creation, Institute for FAITH, WORK, and ECONOMICS). Perhaps, that is why Paul urges Christians, Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (Col 3:23-24).

2.  Cultivate your wife’s spiritual growth. Rick Phillips explains what our calling to cultivate the garden means for our marriages. He says,

Of course our “garden (Gen 2:15) includes not merely things but people…Men’s calling to cultivate means we are to be involved in the hearts of people placed under our care—people who work for us, people we teach and mentor, and most especially our wives and children. A man’s fingers should be accustomed to working in the soil of the human heart—the hearts of those he serves and loves—that he might accomplish some of the most valuable and important work of his life (The Masculine Mandate).

In Ephesians 5, Paul teaches that the pattern for husbands to follow is Christ, who died so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (vs 27). This tells us that a husband’s first concern for his wife should be her spiritual well-being: her relationship with Christ and growth into spiritual maturity. The Lord wants us to impact our wife’s life through our devotion to helping her be all she can be in Christ.

3.  Plant some foundational nutrients into the hearts of our children. Phillips continues, A godly father plants good things in the hearts of his children. He plants:

• The seeds of his own faith in Christ.
• A longing for truth and goodness.
• His hopes and dreams for the godly man or woman the child will become.
• His own confidence that the child has all the gifting and capacity needed to serve God faithfully in whatever way God may genuinely call.

4. Prepare the soil of your lost friends hearts for the gospel. Here are three practical ways to do that:

a. Pray for opportunities to show them the love of Christ and discuss spiritual things. I know from countless experiences that God loves to answer this prayer.

b. Ask questions and listen attentively. The goal is not dumping truth into your friend’s heart, but discovering their heart through genuine friendship, first so his heart is receptive to the seed of God’s truth.

c. Be NORMAL. John Leonard, in his excellent book, Get Real makes an astute observation about most Christians mistaken thinking about impacting their non-Christian friends. He writes:

Christians, too often, live under the guilt of not being “Christian enough.” We all believe that if we were better, people would see the Lord in us and they would give their life to Christ… In our desire to show others how different we are because of Christ, we’re not making ourselves any more appealing to non-believers around us. In fact, we are presenting ourselves as weird, strange, and bizarre. So, stop it! For Christ’s sake be normal. When we’re normal and open about our difficulties and struggles, Christ in all his power and glory will come pouring out of our lives.

Be committed to having an impact on the non-believers God has planted in your life. Prepare the soil of their hearts for the gospel by building real friendships.

5. If you are an empty-nester, is to consider mentoring a man under 40. You are still made for impact, after raising your family or retiring, and there is a great opportunity to have that impact in the life of a younger man. The rising generation of men is looking for connections to older guys who will take an interest in them. On a zoom call this past week, representatives of this generation reported that:

• They don’t want some structured, program-driven, kind of mentoring.
• What they are looking for is older men who will reach out and take an interest in them.
• They are not looking for men to share their successes, which is good because the main obstacle to older men seeing themselves as mentors is all their failures.
• “The most powerful thing an older guy can do is share his struggles and failures.” Millennials aren’t looking for Mr. Perfect Christian Husband & Dad.
• All that is needed is reaching out to them with the love of Christ for a cup of coffee, seeing how that goes and perhaps reaching out again as the friendship grows.

God designed us to make a difference everywhere in the various domains of our lives. When we have that impact, dopamine and endorphins (the pleasure hormones) flood into our lives. But such impact doesn’t happen by accident. We risk missing the opportunities God has put right in front of us because it is human nature to get distracted by minor issues. We play Trivial Pursuit with our lives. We default to pursuing aimless distractions unless we find a way to stay focused on our mission. Focus is the key to real impact, points out Rick Warren. He continues:

The power of focusing can be seen in light. Diffused light has little power or impact, but you can concentrate its energy by focusing it. With a magnifying glass, the rays of the sun can be focused to set grass or paper on fire. When light is focused even more as a laser beam it can cut through steel. There is nothing quite as potent as a focused life, one lived on purpose. The men and women who made the greatest difference in history were the most focused. For instance, the apostle Paul almost single-handedly spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. His secret was a focused life. He said, “I am focusing all my energies on this one thing. Forgetting the past and looking forward to what is ahead.” If you want your life to have impact, focus it.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. What can you do to help other Christian men that they were made for impact?

2. Which of the above 5 ways to impact those around you most stands out to you? How can you implement a plan for such impact?