Equipping Blog Posts

    My hunting partner Darby whispered these words of encouragement from behind

me in between breaths as we climbed the sheer mountain face with packs, weighted with my New Mexico mule deer. I’m not sure if his words were meant to encourage me or self-talk himself up the mountain—but it worked.

            Similarly, I once asked my father-in-law how he marched for so many miles with such heavy pack loads during his Marine days, and his response was simply, “Slow and steady, slow and steady.”

Men, be warned. If you lack integrity, you lack everything. You’ll never become the man God designed you to be. Pack your life with all the characteristics needed to be a whole man, complete and lacking nothing (James 1:4). Commit to being impeccable in your integrity. Climb through your life without excess baggage, having to resupply, or getting killed (or killing someone else for that matter) somewhere on the way!

“I recently contacted QuickBooks support after hours.  To get the help I needed, I entered a chat with a QuickBooks Support Professional.  The entire chat lasted over 3 hours because I had to save new files, change older files, then reload the other files over it.  While waiting for files to load, etc... we started talking and she asked what Men in the Arena was.  I told her about the organization and that the Men in the Arena Podcast was listened to all over the world. She told me she has a boyfriend that wanted to get married, but she wasn't going to marry someone who wasn’t a Christian.           

She started listening to an episode while helping me, since she was working remotely from her home in Costa Rica, and he was in the room. By the time we were off the chat, she had listened to two of the podcasts and noticed her boyfriend was listening too, and very much interested. 

A couple months later she sent me a message letting me know that her boyfriend was a regular podcast listener, had given his life to Christ, and asked her to marry him. She said yes, of course!”

As a follower of Jesus, pop culture and social norms fall victim to truth. They must. The non-conformist Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:25, ^“Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 

And again in 1 Corinthians 2:4-6, “My message and my preaching were (a) demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away.”

Our guest Kenny Joyner shared #11-21 of his timeless Words of Wisdom for fathers...

Anonymous in the Bleachers, Not in the Game 

In his book, Joyner asks readers a profound question, “Where are our fathers? Where the strong and courageous men that God and our society are looking for? Gone are the days of traditional families, which were led by strong and courageous men who placed an underlying loyalty on family values. Gone are the days when children would meet their fathers at the door after a hard day of work.”

Manhood is a journey not a destination. A man is as a man does. It is function (doing manly things) more than form (looking manly). What is gained today can be lost tomorrow, which is why we use progressive verbs to describe each of the five. 

            It is a climb—the grind of your life—but when you die you will be remembered as a man who brought the blessing of manly strength instead of the toxicity of male weakness.

In my limited history, I have discovered that sold out followers of Jesus are the toughest, most enduring people on the planet. I’ve never met anyone with as much true grit as man who has modeled his life after Jesus Christ.

It is true. Jesus will make you more of a man than you every could have been without Him.