Are You A Man Worth Having?

I’ve seen a lot of Memes & image cards on the internet that tell me what a good man is, or what a good man will do.

Here are some characteristics gleaned from social media about what a Real or Good man is.

He listens.

He reads.

He’s secure enough to have her stand in the lime-light.

He’s romantic.

He minds his manners.

He holds the door open.

He understands that he doesn’t know everything.

He makes a conscious effort to learn something new every day.

He reads this without being offended.

He treasures a woman’s heart after he’s won it.

He doesn’t have time to look at another woman because he’s too busy looking for ways to love his own.

He changes himself because he loves his woman.

He’s careful with his decisions & actions so he’s never responsible for her pain.

A real man will make missing you his hobby, caring for you his job, and making you happy his duty, and loving you his life.

man-worth-having

Do you agree with these? When it comes to being a real good man, I think most of them are narrowly focused and missing the point.

While I think that too many women are already yoked to a man who is not worth having, one of the underlying themes in my writing is to help that. I want to write about being a man of quality. In relationships, being a man worth having.

One of my first jobs that didn’t involve delivering newspapers or mowing grass was as a dish washer for the local Elk’s Club. One day while on my way home from work, I came to a red light and there was a car stopped in front of me. While waiting for the light to turn green I noticed in the car in front of me, the man behind the wheel, closed fist punching the woman in the passenger seat. He punched her 4 or 5 times that I could see. I was just stunned. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’m a teenager & I didn’t really know what to do. All I could think of was that I should maybe honk my horn or something to let him know that I was witnessing his abuse. The light changed, they were gone and I did nothing.

That incident has come to my mind many times over the years and I have rolled it over and over in my mind, trying to determine what the best & most appropriate action should have been. It bothers me when I think about it because I wasn’t raised thinking it was acceptable to hit women and I still wish to this day that I had done something.

She needs to know you’re not going to hit her or abuse her.  If you have a tendency to lose your temper and hit and If you are going to torment and punish her for choosing you, you are not a man worthy of the relationship. To be a man worth having, you need to show her that she’s safe with you.

A few years ago a woman I knew was let go from her job. The company had been sold and was being moved to another state. We all knew her fairly well and we knew that her husband hadn’t had a job in some time. When we asked her how she was doing, she said she was doing alright and was doing a little brokering. We asked if her husband was out looking now that she was unemployed, to which she replied with an eye roll “That would be too life altering for him”. We could tell that she didn’t like supporting him and that her whole situation was discouraging to her.

Remember, God gave Adam a job before He gave him a woman. While both spouses can, and many do work outside the home, a husband needs to be a prominent contributor to the financial well being of the family. I don’t think he needs to necessarily be the primary breadwinner, but he also should not making his wife support him while he spends all his time playing, and not contributing. To be a man worth having, provide for your family & make sure they have what they need.

There’s a guy I knew once that used to call his wife fat in front of his relatives. I used to ask myself why he would do that, but it doesn’t take much thought to really understand why. She was over weight. She knew she was over weight. He knew she was over weight. Everyone who saw her knew she was over weight. What was the point of calling it out and drawing focus to it? He was unhappy with her weight and was trying to shame her into changing it.

To be a man worth having, you need have her back, to look out for her and protect her. Not just physically, but also spiritually and emotionally. Not causing her to be publicly humiliated, but rather, to run interference for her.

When my wife and I are out together, I can usually see when a conversation or an interaction is going weird for her. I see it coming and interject myself to take steps to stop it or change it’s direction. When I recognized that there were things that I would do in front of others that bothered her, I took steps to quit doing them. Why? Because I’m her covenant partner and I’m on the lookout for this stuff. She’s my covenant partner and is doing the same for me.

Being a man worth having starts long before any relationship begins.  It really starts with a man making solid decisions about the kind of man he wants to be.  A man worth having is a man of honor, integrity, humility & faithfulness in every area of his life, not just in relationships.  He is these things because God put in him a desire to be these things. He doesn’t do it for her, but any woman in his life will benefit from his commitment to being a man of excellence.  While I’m talking about men here, these things don’t only apply to men.  These are universal principles and we should all be working to put them into our lives.

So, what do you think?  Have I left something out?  Leave a comment & let me know your top attribute for a man worth having.  I look forward to the conversation.

If this has helped you, please consider sharing.  Thanks again,

Art

 

The True Strength of Marriage

“I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them – it was that promise.”  -Thornton Wilder

Promises kept make for a strong marriage - social card

What do you think of when you think of marriage? What images pop into your thoughts when you hear that word? There are hundreds if not thousands of memes & social cards on the internet intended to be funny, sarcastic, sweet or inspirational concerning marriage. Many I’m sure were written with sincerity and from life experience… and many of them are just plain stupid!

Here’s one seen recently – “Marriage is when a man loses his Bachelor’s degree and a woman gets her Master’s degree”.

Simply put, the true strength of a marriage is not found in pithy inspirational quotes found on the internet. I don’t think it’s even the magic of finding the right person. I say this because even if it feels like they are the right person on day one, that’s no guarantee that it will feel like they are the right person on day 3,650. The flaw in thinking like this is that a strong marriage is going to be built on feelings at all and that is a false notion.  While feelings are good and a good marriage is capable of generating a boatload of good feelings, they are still not the standard that a strong marriage is measured by.

The strength of a marriage is not found in how much a man loves his woman and how committed he is to spending the rest of his live showing her (taken from a pintrest social card). This can’t work because a strong marriage can’t be built by a one sided effort.  I remember a couple who’s marriage had this problem.  I watched year after year, as one spouse did all they knew to do to be a good spouse.  The other would give strong effort once in a while.  Instead that person would comment that their spouse should just “love me as I am” but they themselves didn’t put forth very much effort to make good on their promises. Sadly, this couple didn’t make it.

The strength of a marriage comes from both people making covenant promises, and both hearts committing to keep them. God gave us promises and through hearing these promises and taking them to heart, we have faith in Him (Rom 10:17). God also tells us in Hebrews 6 that it’s the promises that He made to us and the oath that He swore with Abraham that have become an anchor for us when we are tempted to doubt His promises.  In that same way, our marriage becomes stronger when we hear each other make promises, and our marriage becomes anchored by those promises kept.

A strong marriage is built on strong promises.  To take it even deeper, a strong marriage is made more fulfilling when the wife sees and understands how serious her husband takes his promises.  I remember a story a minister was telling about a time he was counselling a couple who were having marital trouble.  The wife said “I want him to so such & such”, and the minister responded “No you don’t”, to which the wife said “I most certainly do!” The minister replied, “No, you don’t want him to do that, you want him to want to do that”.  And he was right.  It wasn’t just the act of doing what she wanted, she really wanted him to care enough about her to do it on his own.  She wanted him to want to help her.

The true strength of marriage is when both fully commit to each other, making a covenant pledge to selflessly work for their spouse’s good, and spend each day keeping their word.  Fulfilled promises make a strong marriage.

Have a serious look at your own relationships this week.  Have you made promises that you haven’t kept?  I encourage you this week to double down on your efforts to keep your covenant promises.

If this has helped you, please leave a comment & let me know.  I appreciate the feedback.  Also, please consider sharing this post with anyone you think it might help.

I appreciate you guys!

Art

Marriage Insights For Young Men.

The older I get the more I am noticing that so many of the boys I know are maturing into young men. As young men tend to do, they are finding relationships and in a few cases, they are moving toward marriage. Some of these young men have had good fatherly examples while others have not.  In either case, to the young man contemplating marriage, I offer some counsel.

I remember the days and weeks leading up to my own marriage. I had scripture and some really good books that told me what a godly marriage was to be like and while I had ideas about what marriage was, I didn’t really know what I was getting in to. There is only so much you can know from books. While my heart was in the right place concerning marriage, I had not field tested the things I had heard or read. While the things written are true, there is a far deeper understanding that comes from the doing.

Couple in Truck resized

The Bible tells a story in 1 Kings 20:11 about a king named Ben-hadad who along with thirty two other kings had laid siege against the king of Israel. Ben-hadad was bragging and threatening before a battle. And the King of Israel said in answer, “Say to him, the time of loud talk is not when a man is putting on his arms, but when he is taking them off” (BBE).

I have always liked that saying. It really speaks to me and when it comes to marriage, it couldn’t be more true. True wisdom regarding marriage comes from the truth of God’s Word, and it has deeper meaning and credibility on the lips of people who have decades of success in marriage.

That being said, here is something I want to tell the dear young men I know as they move toward marriage.

YOU’RE IN IT TO GIVE!

Many people come into marriage with the idea that the perfect marriage will reach into us and fill up a void. We may have this idea that we’re incomplete and that the perfect mate will complete us. The truth is that the completeness that we may be yearning for can really only come from our relationship with God. God in turn gives us the ability to come into marriage from a position of strength, to be the husband that He’s created us to be. When it comes to covenant marriage, you had better be in it to give! People (husbands and wives) looking only to “get” out of marriage are setting themselves up for failure and they are setting their spouse up for disappointment and heartbreak. If you are needy and high maintenance, to me that says that you are actually just selfish. You’re only thinking about what’s good for you.

The deeper understanding of Love is that it can not be taken. True covenant love can only be given and received. People who try to put stipulations on love or make it performance centered are manipulators and while they think they are showing love, true love is not there.

“A Good Husband Makes A Good Wife.” – John Florio

What is the hallmark of true love? How can we tell that it’s real? The famous Bible verse John 3:16 tells us that God so loved us that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish but will have everlasting life. We see that the measure and depth of His love toward us was that He gave. He didn’t take or demand, He gave. Romans 5:8 says “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s love for us could not be performance driven otherwise His love for us wouldn’t have been made manifest until we “Got right”.  For more information on God’s Love click HERE.

Likewise, the husband’s love has got to be about giving. A man needs to establish in his heart that he is the servant of his family. He will do what it takes to provide for and facilitate the family’s success. I personally think of myself as “Batting clean-up”. When everyone else has freaked out and climbed up on the furniture, I’m the one who has to kill the spider. When one of the cars starts making a funny noise, I’m the one who, first has to try to figure it out. If I can’t, then I’m the one who has to find someone who can. When there’s a noise in the middle of the night, I’m the one up looking around. Yard, house, car maintenance, dirty, stinky or disgusting – I’m the guy.

I don’t feel like I’m being put on or that this is all a big burden for me. When I gave my heart to my wife, my marriage and my family, the willingness to do these things grew out of that commitment. It’s not what I have to do, it’s what I get to do – it comes from who I am.

“Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.”  — Zig Ziglar

You might be asking about now “What about my needs?” The truth is that you can not sow with out reaping. As the leader of your family, you will be the one that God holds accountable to initiate the right behavior. Your wife is not made to be the initiator, she is made to be a responder. The Bible makes this promise – that whatever a man shall sow, that shall he also reap. This is true concerning marriage too. If you plant good seeds, you will reap a good harvest. If you are going to be a selfishness, condescending jerk to your wife, you have no right to expect a better harvest than the seeds you have sown.

Remember – Real love can not be taken, it can only be received – and then, only when it is given. Also, remember that it is God who gives us the ability to be the husbands that our wife and family need. To those who look to Him, He gives the strength to be givers, servants and leaders to our families.

How can you put this into action this week? How can you facilitate the success of your relationship or future family this week?  What one thing can you do that will make a difference?

Please take a minute and leave a comment. Also, take a minute and share this post with someone else who could benefit from it.

I appreciate you guys!

Art

Marriage to enjoy, or endure. The choice is yours.

I don’t drive with the radio on very often.  When I’m in the car I’m very often praying.  A few months ago while I was driving to work I was meditating of the mercy of God.  It was quiet in the car and I wasn’t making any noise, I was just thinking about how merciful the Lord is and how faithful He is to show mercy.  All of the sudden, the Lord began to deal with my heart about my marriage.  I have a good marriage and I pay attention to the kind of husband I am.  Sometimes though, we get lazy in our thinking and just assume that it’s ok.  Our marriage is the backdrop for our lives and always running in the background – sometimes being ignored.  A good marriage takes intentional thinking though, and I was not being intentional about it that often.  The Lord impressed upon me that my wife had not made a plan B.  Our marriage was it.  Her happiness and fulfillment were in my very hands.  I can not be 100% responsible for her being happy or fulfilled but I could be 100% responsible if she wasn’t.  I need to build & keep an environment of love and protection around her so that she can grow to find her own happiness & fulfillment.  I was being shown that I need to be watchful that I don’t make her suffer for choosing me.  If she was going to be truly happy & reach her full potential in this life, I was going to be a part of it.  I realized more clearly in that moment that if I wasn’t intentional with the way I treated her, I could give her a life that instead of loving and enjoying, she would have to just endure.  It woke me up.

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I love my wife and want the very best for her always.  When the Lord deals with me like that, I really take it seriously.    God doesn’t just have a plan for my life.  He has a plan for her life too.  His plan for me and my wife will be intertwined and it will be much easier for both of us to make it to our full potential if we are both in our place and following the Lord’s plan for us.  God cares as much for her and my children as He does for me.  We are all on equal footing when we approach Him.  God has no grandchildren.

God’s instruction to us as husbands in Ephesians 5:25 is to love our wives as Christ loves the church.  How did Christ show his love to the church?  He gave himself for it.  We as husbands need to have this attitude in our marriage.  I like the words that Paul the Apostle used in 2 Corinthians 12:15 when he said “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved”.  Our love to our wife is a gift we must give.  She can’t take it, it must be given.  We need to have a “very gladly spend and be spent” attitude when it comes to her.  One last thing.  You need to consider yourself the bottom line in your relationship with your wife.  Don’t wait for her to satisfy all of your needs before you even try to make her happy.  You do your part now,  you do your part continually and you do your part no matter what!