Manliness: Active role driven by grace

There's a boy in our church who -- every time he arrives -- sprints down the hallway, jumps through the doorway into a room and roars as loud as he can. Each time his mother is embarrassed and his father is bewildered. I call him "The Hulk."

One day his father, frustrated by his behavior and having a daughter as the only comparison, asked me, "Why does he do that?" Digging into my vast richness of knowledge and experience of having two boys who are just a little bit older than he, I answered his question with four simple words; "Because he's a boy." Like the Lion on the Serengeti, he wants all those around him know that he is here, he is ready and he is a boy. I think there's something in that 3-year-old that most men would like to recapture.

Broad searches for quotations on manliness will turn up all sorts of responses. Perhaps the most chilling is attributed to Mark Twain, "Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72."

Could that really be the case? Could it be that men for the majority of their lives are zombies? Is the world full of men who used to roar when they entered a room and now they just show up? Maybe.

The Bible calls forth manliness. It calls out a vision of what it means to be a man who has been transformed by grace. It calls for manliness that is no more a club-waving cave man than it is a passive wet noodle.

Paul, in closing his letter to the Corinthian Church, writes, "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Cor. 16:13 -- 14)

There are four key phrases that are critical to acting as men: Watching, standing firm, being strong and acting in love. Each word could be thought out and reflected upon. Connecting all of these is the Biblical idea that manliness is an active role driven by God's grace for the purpose of building others up because a man can be relied upon.

I may not walk into a room and roar, but when I walk into the door of my house I want my kids and my wife to know that I'm home; they can rely on me, and I'm there to build them up.

That's manliness.

Robert Hurtgen is a husband, father, minister and writer. Read more of him at robhurtgen.wordpress.com.